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j4 Dreamer'' s Tales 




WE WOULD GALLOr THROUGH AFRICA 



A 

Dreamer's Tales 



BY 

Lord Duns any f^d^ 



With Illustrations by 

S. H. SIME 



BOSTON 
JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY 



\ ^ \ G 












9 1917 / 



Preface 

I HOPE for this book that it may come into 
the hands of those that were kind to my 
others and that it may not disappoint them. 



To the Editor of the Saturday Review my 
thanks are due for permission to repubUsh 
here those of the following tales which 
have appeared in his columns, and, more 
than that, for the opportunity afforded me 
by his review of reaching a wider public 
than my books have attained to yet. 



Contents 



PAGE 



POLTARNEES, BeHOLDER OF OCEAN 


1 


Blagdaross 


23 


The Madness of Andelsprutz 


32 


Where the Tides Ebb and Flow. 


40 


Bethmoora 


50 


Idle Days on the Yann . 


• 


. 59 


The Sword and the Idol 


• 


. 93 


The Idle City .... 


• * 


105 


The Hashish Man 


• 


. 116 


Poor Old Bill . 


I • 


. 127 


The Beggars 


> • 


. 138 


Carcassonne 


» • 


. 144 


In Zaccarath 


■ « 


. 168 


The Field .... 




. 175 


The Day of the Poll 


% • 


. 182 


The Unhappy Body 


> • 


: IBS 



List of Illustrations 



We Would Gallop Through 




Africa .... 


Frontispiece 


Romance Comes Down Out 




OF Hilly Woodlands . To 


jace page 4 


The Soul of Andelsprutz ^' 


34 


The Terrible Mud . . " 


42 


Bird of the River . . " 


60 


The Gate of Yann . . " 


90 


The Silence of Ged . . " 


" 108 


Thuba Mleen ..." 


" 122 


Little Cottages .... Whose 




Looks We Did Not Like " 


"' 128 



PoltarneeSy 

Beholder of Ocean 




oldees,Mondath,Arizim, these 
are the Inner Lands, the lands 
whose sentinels upon their 
borders do not behold the 
sea. Beyond them to the east 
there hes a desert, for ever untroubled by 
man: all yellow it is, and spotted with 
shadows of stones, and Death is in it, like 
a leopard lying in the sun. To the south 
they are bounded by magic, to the west by 
a mountain, and to the north by the voice 
and anger of the Polar wind. Like a great 
wall is the mountain to the west. It comes 
up out of the distance and goes down into 
the distance again, and it is named Poltar- 
nees. Beholder of Ocean. To the northward 
red rocks, smooth and bare of soil, and 
without any speck of moss or herbage, slope 
up to the very lips of the Polar wind, and 
there is nothing else there but the noise of 



A Dreamer's Tales 

his anger. Very peaceful are the Inner 
Lands, and very fair are their cities, and 
there is no war among them, but quiet and 
ease. And they have no enemy but age, 
for thirst and fever lie sunning themselves 
out in the mid-desert, and never prowl into 
the Inner Lands. And the ghouls and 
ghosts, whose highway is the night, are kept 
in the south by the boundary of magic. 
And very small are all their pleasant cities, 
and all men are known to one another 
therein, and bless one another by name as 
they meet in the streets. And they have a 
broad, green way in every city that comes 
in out of some vale or wood or downland, 
and wanders in and out about the city be- 
tween the houses and across the streets; 
and the people walk along it never at all, 
but every year at her appointed time Spring 
walks along it from the flowery lands, 
causing the anemone to bloom on the green 
way and all the early joys of hidden woods, 
or deep, secluded vales, or triumphant 
downlands, whose heads lift up so proudly, 
far up aloof from cities. 

Sometimes waggoners or shepherds walk 
along this way, they that have come into 



A Dreamer's Tales 

the city from over cloudy ridges, and the 
townsmen hinder them not, for there is a 
tread that troubleth the grass and a tread 
that troubleth it not, and each man in his 
own heart knoweth which tread he hath. 
And in the sunlit spaces of the weald and 
in the wold's dark places, afar from the 
music of cities and from the dance of the 
cities afar, they make there the music of 
the country places and dance the country 
dance. Amiable, near and friendly appears 
to these men the sun, and as he is genial to 
them and tends their younger vines, so they 
are kind to the little woodland things and 
any rumour of the fairies or old legend. 
And when the hght of some little distant 
city makes a slight flush upon the edge of 
the sky, and the happy golden windows of 
the homesteads stare gleaming into the dark, 
then the old and holy figure of Romance, 
cloaked even to the face, comes down out 
of hilly woodlands and bids dark shadows 
to rise and dance, and sends the forest 
creatures forth to prowl, and lights in a 
moment in her bower of grass the little glow- 
worm's lamp, and brings a hush down over 
the grey lands, and out of it rises faintly on 

3 



A Dreamer's Tales 

far-oflf hills the voice of a lute. There are 
not in the world lands more prosperous and 
happy than Toldees, Mondath, Arizim. 

From these three little kingdoms that are 
named the Inner Lands the young men stole 
constantly away. One by one they went, 
and no one knew why they went save that 
they had a longing to behold the Sea. Of 
this longing they spoke little, but a young 
man would become silent for a few days, 
and then, one morning very early, he would 
slip away and slowly climb Poltarnees's 
difficult slope, and having attained the top 
pass over and never return. A few stayed 
behind in the Inner Lands and became old 
men, but none that had ever climbed Pol- 
tarnees from the very earliest times had ever 
come back again. Many had gone up Pol- 
tarnees sworn to return. Once a king sent 
all his courtiers, one by one, to report the 
mystery to him, and then went himself; 
none ever returned. 

Now, it was the wont of the folk of the 
Inner Lands to worship rumours and legends 
of the Sea, and all that their prophets dis- 
covered of the Sea was writ in a sacred book, 
and with deep devotion on days of festival or 




ROMANCE COMES DOWN OUT OF HILLY WOODLANDS 



A Dreamer's Tales 

mourning read in the temples by the priests. 
Now, all their temples lay open to the west, 
resting upon pillars, that the breeze from the 
Sea might enter them, and they lay open on 
pillars to the east that the breezes of the 
Sea might not be hindered but pass onward 
wherever the Sea list. And this is the legend 
that they had of the Sea, whom none in the 
Inner Lands had ever beholden. They say 
that the Sea is a river heading towards Her- 
cules, and they say that he touches against 
the edge of the world, and that Poltarnees 
looks upon him. They say that all the 
worlds of heaven go bobbing on this river 
and are swept down with the stream, and 
that Infinity is thick and furry with forests 
through which the river in his course sweeps 
on with all the worlds of heaven. Among 
the colossal trunks of those dark trees, the 
smallest fronds of whose branches are many 
nights, there walk the gods. And whenever 
its thirst, glowing in space like a great sun, 
comes upon the beast, the tiger of the gods 
creeps down to the river to drink. And the 
tiger of the gods drinks his fill loudly, whelm- 
ing worlds the while, and the level of the 
river sinks between its banks ere the beast's 



A Dreamer's Tales 

thirst is quenched and ceases to glow like a 
sun. And many worlds thereby are heaped 
up dry and stranded, and the gods walk 
not among them evermore, because they 
are hard to their feet. These are the worlds 
that have no destiny, whose people know 
no god. And the river sweeps onwards ever. 
And the name of the river is Oriathon, but 
men call it Ocean. This is the Lower Faith 
of the Inner Lands. And there is a Higher 
Faith which is not told to all. According to 
the Higher Faith of the Inner Lands the 
river Oriathon sweeps on through the forests 
of Infinity and all at once falls roaring over 
an Edge, whence Time has long ago recalled 
his hours to fight in his war with the gods; 
and falls unlit by the flash of nights and 
days, with his flood unmeasured by miles, 
into the deeps of nothing. 

Now as the centuries went by and the one 
way by which a man could climb Poltarnees 
became worn with feet, more and more men 
surmounted it, not to return. And still they 
knew not in the Inner Lands upon what 
mystery Poltarnees looked. For on a still 
day and windless, while men walked happily 
about their beautiful streets or tended flocks 

6 



A Dreamer's Tales 

in the country, suddenly the west wind 
would bestir himself and come in from the 
Sea. And he would come cloaked and grey 
and mournful and carry to someone the 
hungry cry of the Sea calling out for bones 
of men. And he that heard it would move 
restlessly for some hours, and at last would 
rise suddenly, irresistibly up, setting his 
face to Poltarnees, and would say, as is the 
custom of those lands when men part 
briefly, "Till a man's heart remembereth," 
which means "Farewell for a while;" but 
those that loved him, seeing his eyes on 
Poltarnees, would answer sadly, "Till the 
gods forget," which means "Farewell." 

Now the King of Arizim had a daughter 
who played with the wild wood flowers, 
and with the fountains in her father's court, 
and with the little blue heaven-birds that 
came to her doorway in the winter to shelter 
from the snow. And she was more beauti- 
ful than the wild wood flowers, or than all 
the fountains in her father's court, or than 
the blue heaven-birds in their full winter 
plumage when they shelter from the snow. 
The old wise kings of Mondath and of 
Toldees saw her once as she went lightly 

7 



A Dreamer's Tales 

down the little paths of her garden, and, 
turning their gaze into the mists of thought, 
pondered the destiny of their Inner Lands. 
And they watched her closely by the stately 
flowers, and standing alone in the sunlight, 
and passing and repassing the strutting 
purple birds that the king's fowlers had 
brought from Asagehon. When she was of 
the age of fifteen years the King of Mon- 
dath called a council of kings. And there 
met with him the kings of Toldees and 
Arizim. And the King of Mondath in his 
Council said: 

"The call of the unappeased and hungry 
Sea (and at the word 'Sea' the three kings 
bowed their heads) lures every year out of 
our happy kingdoms more and more of our 
men, and still we know not the mystery of 
the Sea, and no devised oath has brought 
one man back. Now thy daughter, Arizim, 
is lovelier than the sunlight, and lovelier 
than those stately flowers of thine that 
stand so tall in her garden, and hath more 
grace and beauty than those strange birds 
that the venturous fowlers bring in creaking 
waggons out of Asagehon, whose feathers 
are alternate purple and white. Now, he 



A Dreamer's Tales 

that shall love thy daughter, Hilnaric, who- 
ever he shall be, is the man to chmb Pol- 
tarnees and return, as none hath ever be- 
fore, and tell us upon what Poltarnees 
looks; for it may be that thy daughter is 
more beautiful than the Sea." 

Then from his Seat of Council arose the 
King of Arizim. He said: "I fear that 
thou hast spoken blasphemy against the 
Sea, and I have a dread that ill will come of 
it. Indeed I had not thought she was so 
fair. It is such a short while ago that she 
was quite a small child with her hair still 
unkempt and not yet attired in the manner 
of princesses, and she would go up into the 
wild woods unattended and come back with 
her robes unseemly and all torn, and would 
not take reproof with humble spirit, but 
made grimaces even in my marble court all 
set about with fountains." 

Then said the King of Toldees: 
*'Let us watch more closely and let us 
see the Princess Hilnaric in the season of 
the orchard-bloom when the great birds go 
by that know the Sea, to rest in our inland 
places; and if she be more beautiful than 
the sunrise over our folded kingdoms when 

9 



A Dreamer's Tales 

all the orchards bloom, it may be that she 
is more beautiful than the Sea." 

And the King of Arizim said : 

"I fear this is terrible blasphemy, 
yet will I do as you have decided in 
council." 

And the season of the orchard-bloom ap- 
peared. One night the King of Arizim called 
his daughter forth on to his outer bal- 
cony of marble. And the moon was rising 
huge and round and holy over dark woods, 
and all the fountains were singing to the 
night. And the moon touched the marble 
palace gables, and they glowed in the land. 
And the moon touched the heads of all the 
fountains, and the grey columns broke into 
fairy Ughts. And the moon left the dark 
ways of the forest and ht the whole white 
palace and its fountains and shone on the 
forehead of the Princess, and the palace 
of Arizim glowed afar, and the fountains 
became columns of gleaming jewels and 
song. And the moon made a music at his 
rising, but it fell a little short of mortal ears. 
And Hilnaric stood there wondering, clad in 
white, with the moonUght shining on her 
forehead; and watching her from the shad- 

10 



A Dreamer's Tales 

ows on the terrace stood the kings of Mon- 
dath and Toldees. They said : 

"She is more beautiful than the moon- 
rise. 

And on another day the King of Arizim 
bade his daughter forth at dawn, and they 
stood again upon the balcony. And the sun 
came up over a world of orchards, and the 
sea-mists went back over Poltarnees to the 
Sea; little wild voices arose in all the thick- 
ets, the voices of the fountains began to 
die, and the song arose, in all the marble 
temples, of the birds that are sacred to the 
Sea. And Hilnaric stood there, still glowing 
with dreams of heaven. 

She is more beautiful," said the kings, 

than morning." 

Yet one more trial they made of Hil- 
naric's beauty, for they watched her on 
the terraces at sunset ere yet the petals of 
the orchards had fallen, and all along the 
edge of neighbouring woods the rhododen- 
dron was blooming with the azalea. And 
the sun went down under craggy Poltar- 
nees, and the sea-mist poured over his 
summit inland. And the marble temples 
stood up clear in the evening, but jfilms of 

11 






A Dreamer's Tales 

twilight were drawn between the mountain 
and the city. Then from the Temple ledges 
and eaves of palaces the bats fell headlong 
downwards, then spread their wings and 
floated up and down through darkening 
ways; lights came blinking out in golden 
windows, men cloaked themselves against 
the grey sea-mist, the sound of small songs 
arose, and the face of Hilnaric became a 
resting-place for mysteries and dreams. 

^'Than all these things," said the kings, 
"she is more lovely: but who can say 
whether she is lovelier than the Sea?" 

Prone in a rhododendron thicket at the 
edge of the palace lawns a hunter had waited 
since the sun went down. Near to him was 
a deep pool where the hyacinths grew and 
strange flowers floated upon it with broad 
leaves, and there the great bull gariachs 
came down to drink by starhght, and, wait- 
ing there for the gariachs to come, he saw 
the white form of the Princess leaning on her 
balcony. Before the stars shone out or the 
bulls came down to drink he left his lurking- 
place and moved closer to the palace to see 
more nearly the Princess. The palace lawns 
were full of untrodden dew, and every- 

12 



A Dreamer's Tales 

thing was still when he came across them, 
holding his great spear. In the farthest 
corner of the terraces the three old kings 
were discussing the beauty of Hilnaric and 
the destiny of the Inner Lands. Moving 
lightly, with a hunter's tread, the watcher 
by the pool came very near, even in the still 
evening, before the Princess saw him. 
When he saw her closely he exclaimed sud- 
denly: 

''She must be more beautiful than the 
Sea." 

When the Princess turned and saw his 
garb and his great spear she knew that he 
was a hunter of gariachs. 

When the three kings heard the young 
man exclaim they said softly to one an- 
other: 

"This must be the man." 

Then they revealed themselves to him, 
and spoke to him to try him. They said: 

" Sir, you have spoken blasphemy against 
the Sea." 

And the young man muttered : 

"She is more beautiful than the Sea." 

And the kings said: 
We are older than you and wiser, and 

13 



C6 



A Dreamer's Tales 

know that nothing is more beautiful than 
the Sea." 

And the young man took off the gear of 
his head, and became downcast, and knew 
that he spake with kings, yet he answered: 

"By this spear, she is more beautiful 
than the Sea." 

And all the while the Princess stared at 
him, knowing him to be a hunter of gariachs. 

Then the King of Arizim said to the 
watcher by the pool: 

"If thou wilt go up Poltarnees and come 
back, as none have come, and report to us 
what lure or magic is in the Sea, we will 
pardon thy blasphemy, and thou shalt have 
the Princess to wife and sit among the 
Council of the Kings." 

And gladly thereunto the young man 
consented. And the Princess spoke to him, 
and asked him his name. And he told her 
that his name was Athelvok, and great joy 
arose in him at the sound of her voice. And 
to the three kings he promised to set out on 
the third day to scale the slope of Poltarnees 
and to return again, and this was the oath 
by which they bound him to return: 

"I swear by the Sea that bears the worlds 

14 



A Dreamer's Tales 

away, by the river of Oriathon, which 
men call Ocean, and by the gods and their 
tiger, and by the doom of the worlds, that 
I will return again to the Inner Lands, 
having beheld the Sea." 

And that oath he swore with solemnity 
that very night in one of the temples of the 
Sea, but the three kings trusted more to 
the beauty of Hilnaric even than to the 
power of the oath. 

The next day Athelvok came to the 
palace of Arizim with the morning, over 
the fields to the East and out of the country 
of Toldees, and Hilnaric came out along 
her balcony and met him on the terraces. 
And she asked him if he had ever slain a 
gariach, and he said that he had slain three, 
and then he told her how he had killed his 
first down by the pool in the wood. For 
he had taken his father's spear and gone 
down to the edge of the pool, and had lain 
under the azaleas there waiting for the stars 
to shine, by whose first Ught the gariachs 
go to the pools to drink; and he had gone 
too early and had had long to wait, and the 
passing hours seemed longer than they were. 
And all the birds came in that home at 

15 



A Dreamer's Tales 

night, and the bat was abroad, and the 
hour of the duck went by, and still no 
gariach came down to the pool; and Athel- 
vok felt sure that none would come. And 
just as this grew to a certainty in his mind 
the thicket parted noiselessly and a huge 
bull gariach stood facing him on the edge 
of the water, and his great horns swept out 
sideways from his head, and at the ends 
curved upwards, and were four strides in 
width from tip to tip. And he had not seen 
Athelvok, for the great bull was on the far 
side of the little pool, and Athelvok could 
not creep round to him for fear of meeting 
the wind (for the gariachs, who can see 
little in the dark forests, rely on hearing and 
smell). But he devised swiftly in his mind 
while the bull stood there with head erect 
just twenty strides from him across the 
water. And the bull sniffed the wind cau- 
tiously and listened, then lowered its great 
head down to the pool and drank. At that 
instant Athelvok leapt into the water and 
shot forward through its weedy depths 
among the stems of the strange flowers 
that floated upon broad leaves on the sur- 
face. And Athelvok kept his spear out 

16 



A Dreamer's Tales 

straight before him, and the fingers of his 
left hand he held rigid and straight, not 
pointing upwards, and so did not come to 
the surface, but was carried onward by the 
strength of his spring and passed unentang- 
led through the stems of the flowers. When 
Athelvok jumped into the water the bull 
must have thrown his head up, startled at 
the splash, then he would have listened and 
have sniffed the air, and neither hearing 
nor scenting any danger he must have re- 
mained rigid for some moments, for it was 
in that attitude that Athelvok found him 
as he emerged breathless at his feet. And, 
striking at once, Athelvok drove the spear 
into his throat before the head and the 
terrible horns came down. But Athelvok 
had clung to one of the great horns, and 
had been carried at terrible speed through 
the rhodendron bushes until the gariach 
fell, but rose at once again, and died stand- 
ing up, still struggling, drowned in its own 
blood. 

But to Hilnaric listening it was as though 
one of the heroes of old time had come back 
again in the full glory of his legendary youth. 

And long time the}^ went up and down 

17 



A Dreamer's Tales 

the terraces, saying those things which 
were said before and since, and which lips 
shall yet be made to say again. And above 
them stood Poltarnees beholding the Sea. 

And the day came when Athelvok should 
go. And Hilnaric said to him: 

"Will you not indeed most surely come 
back again, having just looked over the 
summit of Poltarnees?" 

Athelvok answered: "I will indeed come 
back, for thy voice is more beautiful than 
the hymn of the priests when they chant 
and praise the Sea, and though many tribu- 
tary seas ran down into Oriathon and he 
and all the others poured their beauty into 
one pool below me, yet would I return 
swearing that thou wert fairer than they." 

And Hilnaric answered: 

"The wisdom of my heart tells me, or 
old knowledge or prophecy, or some strange 
lore, that I shall never hear thy voice again. 
And for this I give thee my forgiveness." 

But he, repeating the oath that he had 
sworn, set out, looking often backwards 
until the slope became too steep and his 
face was set to the rock. It was in the 
morning that he started, and he climbed all 

18 



A Dreamer's Tales 

the day with little rest, where every foot- 
hole was smooth with many feet. Before 
he reached the top the sun disappeared 
from him, and darker and darker grew the 
Inner Lands. Then he pushed on so as to 
see before dark whatever thing Poltarnees 
had to show. The dusk was deep over the 
Inner Lands, and the lights of cities twin- 
kled through the sea-mist when he came to 
Poltarnees's summit, and the sun before 
him was not yet gone from the sky. 

And there below him was the old wrinkled 
Sea, smiHng and murmuring song. And he 
nursed little ships with gleaming sails, and 
in his hands were old regretted wrecks, and 
masts all studded over with golden nails 
that he had rent in anger out of beautiful 
galleons. And the glory of the sun was 
among the surges as they brought driftwood 
out of isles of spice, tossing their golden 
heads. And the grey currents crept away 
to the south like companionless serpents 
that love something afar with a restless, 
deadly love. And the whole plain of water 
glittering with late sunlight, and the surges 
and the currents and the white sails of ships 
were all together like the face of a strange 

19 



A Dreamer's Tales 

new god that has looked a man for the first 
time in the eyes at the moment of his death; 
and Athelvok, looking on the wonderful 
Sea, knew why it was that the dead never 
return, for there is something that the dead 
feel and know, and the hving would never 
understand even though the dead should 
come and speak to them about it. And 
there was the Sea smiling at him, glad with 
the glory of the sun. And there was a 
haven there for homing ships, and a sunlit 
city stood upon its marge, and people 
walked about the streets of it clad in the un- 
imagined merchandise of far sea-bordering 
lands. 

An easy slope of loose crumbled rock 
went from the top of Poltarnees to the 
shore of the Sea. 

For a long while Athelvok stood there 
regretfully, knowing that there had come 
something into his soul that no one in the 
Inner Lands could understand, where the 
thoughts of their minds had gone no farther 
than the three little kingdoms. Then, look- 
ing long upon the wandering ships, and the 
marvellous merchandise from alien lands, 
and the unknown colour that wreathed the 

20 



A Dreamer's Tales 

brows of the Sea, he turned his face to the 
darkness and the Inner Lands. 

At that moment the Sea sang a dirge at 
sunset for all the harm that he had done in 
anger and all the ruin wrought on adventur- 
ous ships; and there were tears in the 
voice of the tyrannous Sea, for he had 
loved the galleons that he had overwhelmed, 
and he called all men to him and all hving 
things that he might make amends, be- 
cause he had loved the bones that he had 
strewn afar. And Athelvok turned and set 
one foot upon the crumbled slope, and then 
another, and walked a httle way to be 
nearer to the Sea, and then a dream came 
upon him and he felt that men had wronged 
the lovely Sea because he had been angry 
a httle, because he had been sometimes 
cruel; he felt that there was trouble among 
the tides of the Sea because he had loved 
the galleons who were dead. Still he walked 
on and the crumbled stones rolled with 
him, and just as the twihght faded and a 
star appeared he came to the golden shore, 
and walked on till the surges were about 
his knees, and he heard the prayer-like 
blessings of the Sea. Long he stood thus, 

21 



A Dreamer's Tales 

while the stars came out above him and 
shone again in the surges; more stars came 
wheehng in their courses up from the Sea, 
lights twinkled out through all the haven 
city, lanterns were slung from the ships, 
the purple night burned on; and Earth, to 
the eyes of the gods as they sat afar, glowed 
as with one flame. Then Athelvok went 
into the haven city; there he met many 
who had left the Inner Lands before him; 
none of them wished to return to the people 
who had not seen the Sea; many of them 
had forgotten the three little kingdoms, and 
it was rumoured that one man, who had 
once tried to return, had found the shifting, 
crumbled slope impossible to climb. 

Hilnaric never married. But her dowry 
was set aside to build a temple wherein 
men curse the ocean. 

Once every year, with solemn rite and 
ceremony, they curse the tides of the Sea; 
and the moon looks in and hates them. 



22 



Blagdaross 




n a waste place strewn with 
bricks in the outskirts of a 
town twilight was falling. A 
star or two appeared over the 
smoke, and distant windows 
lit mysterious lights. The stillness deep- 
ened and the loneliness. Then all the out- 
cast things that are silent by day found 
voices. 

An old cork spoke first. He said: "I 
grew in Andalusian woods, but never listen- 
ed to the idle songs of Spain. I only grew 
strong in the sunlight waiting for my 
destiny. One day the merchants came and 
took us all away and carried us all along 
the shore of the sea, piled high on the backs 
of donkeys, and in a town by the sea they 
made me into the shape that I am now. 
One day they sent me northward to Prov- 
ence, and there I fulfilled my destiny. For 
they set me as a guard over the bubbling 

23 



A Dreamer's Tales 

wine, and I faithfully stood sentinel for 
twenty years. For the first few years in 
the bottle that I guarded the wine slept, 
dreaming of Provence; but as the years 
went on he grew stronger and stronger, 
until at last whenever a man went by the 
wine would put out all his might against 
me, saying: 'Let me go free; let me go 
free!' And every year his strength in- 
creased, and he grew more clamorous when 
men went by, but never availed to hurl me 
from my post. But when I had powerfully 
held him for twenty years they brought 
him to the banquet and took me from my 
post, and the wine arose rejoicing and leapt 
through the veins of men and exalted their 
souls within them till they stood up in their 
places and sang Provencal songs. But me 
they cast away — me that had been sentinel 
for twenty years, and was still as strong 
and staunch as when first I went on guard. 
Now I am an outcast in a cold northern 
city, who once have known the Andalusian 
skies and guarded long ago Provencal suns 
that swam in the heart of the rejoicing 
wine." 

An unstruck match that somebody had 

24 



A Dreamer's Tales 

dropped spoke next. "I am a child of the 
sun," he said, "and an enemy of cities^ 
there is more in my heart than you know of. 
I am a brother of Etna and Stromboh; I 
have fires lurking in me that will one day 
rise up beautiful and strong. We will not 
go into servitude on any hearth nor work 
machines for our food, but we will take our 
own food where we find it on that day when 
we are strong. There are wonderful child- 
ren in my heart whose faces shall be more 
lively than the rainbow; they shall make a 
compact with the North wind, and he shall 
lead them forth; all shall be black behind 
them and black above them, and there 
shall be nothing beautiful in the world but 
them; they shall seize upon the earth and 
it shall be theirs, and nothing shall stop 
them but our old enemy the sea." 

Then an old broken kettle spoke, and 
said: "I am the friend of cities. I sit 
among the slaves upon the hearth, the little 
flames that have been fed with coal. When 
the slaves dance behind the iron bars I sit 
in the middle of the dance and sing and 
make our masters glad. And I make songs 
about the comfort of the cat, and about the 

25 



A Dreamer's Tales 

malice that is towards her in the heart of 
the dog, and about the crawHng of the 
baby, and about the ease that is in the lord 
of the house when we brew the good brown 
tea; and sometimes when the house is very 
warm and slaves and masters are glad, I 
rebuke the hostile winds that prowl about 
the world." 

And then there spoke the piece of an old 
cord. " I was made in a place of doom, and 
doomed men made my fibres, working with- 
out hope. Therefore there came a grimness 
into my heart, so that I never let anything 
go free when once I was set to bind it. 
Many a thing have I bound relentlessly 
for months and for years; for I used to 
come coiling into warehouses where the 
great boxes lay all open to the air, and one 
of them would be suddenly closed up, and 
my fearful strength would be set on him 
like a curse, and if his timbers groaned 
when first I seized them, or if they creaked 
aloud in the lonely night, thinking of wood- 
lands out of which they came, then I only 
gripped them tighter still, for the poor 
useless hate is in my soul of those that 
made me in the place of doom. Yet, for all 

26 



A Dreamer's Tales 

the things that my prison-clutch has held, 
the last work that I did was to set 
something free. I lay idle one night in the 
gloom on the warehouse floor. Nothing 
stirred there, and even the spider slept. 
Towards midnight a great flock of echoes 
suddenly leapt up from the wooden planks 
and circled round the roof. A man was 
coming towards me all alone. And as he 
came his soul was reproaching him, and I 
saw that there was a great trouble between 
the man and his soul, for his soul would not 
let him be, but went on reproaching him. 

"Then the man saw me and said, 'This 
at least will not fail me.' When I heard 
him say this about me, I determined that 
whatever he might require of me it should 
be done to the uttermost. And as I made 
this determination in my unaltering heart, 
he picked me up and stood on an empty 
box that I should have bound on the mor- 
row, and tied one end of me to a dark 
rafter; and the knot was carelessly tied, 
because his soul was reproaching him all the 
while continually and giving him no ease. 
Then he made the other end of me into a 
noose, but when the man's soul saw this it 

27 



A Dreamer's Tales 

stopped reproaching the man, and cried out 
to him hurriedly, and besought him to be 
at peace with it and to do nothing sudden; 
but the man went on with his work, and 
put the noose down over his face and 
underneath his chin, and the soul screamed 
horribly. 

"Then the man kicked the box away 
with his foot, and the moment he did this 
I knew that my strength was not great 
enough to hold him; but I remembered 
that he had said I would not fail him, and 
I put all my grim vigour into my fibres and 
held him by sheer will. Then the soul 
shouted to me to give way, but I said: 

" 'No.; you vexed the man.' 

"Then it screamed to me to leave go of 
the rafter, and already I was shpping, for 
I only held on to it by a careless knot, but 
I gripped with my prison grip and said: 

" 'You vexed the man.' 

"And very swiftly it said other things to 
me, but I answered not; and at last the 
soul that vexed the man that had trusted 
me flew away and left him at peace. I 
was never able to bind things any more, 
for every one of my fibres was worn and 

28 



A Dreamefs Tales 

wrenched, and even my relentless heart 
was weakened by the struggle. Very soon 
afterwards I was thrown out here. I have 
done my work." 

So they spoke among themselves, but all 
the while there loomed above them the 
form of an old rocking-horse complaining 
bitterly. He said: "I am Blagdaross. 
Woe is me that I should lie now an outcast 
among these worthy but little people. Alas! 
for the days that are gathered, and alas 
for the Great One that was a master and 
a soul to me, whose spirit is now shrunken 
and can never know me again, and no 
more ride abroad on knightly quests. I 
was Bucephalus when he was Alexander, 
and carried him victorious as far as Ind. 
I encountered dragons with him when he 
was St. George, I was the horse of Roland 
fighting for Christendom, and was often 
Rosinante. I fought in tournays and went 
errant upon quests, and met Ulysses and 
the heroes and the fairies. Or late in the 
evening, just before the lamps in the nurs- 
ery were put out, he would suddenly mount 
me, and we would gallop through Africa. 
There we would pass by night through 

29 



A Dreamer's Tales 

tropic forests, and come upon dark rivers 
sweeping by, all gleaming with the eyes of 
crocodiles, where the hippopotamus floated 
down with the stream, and mysterious craft 
loomed suddenly out of the dark and fur- 
tively passed away. And when we had 
passed through the forest lit by the fire- 
flies we would come to the open plains, and 
gallop onwards with scarlet flamingoes fly- 
ing along beside us through the lands of 
dusky kings, with golden crowns upon their 
heads and sceptres in their hands, who 
came running out of their palaces to see us 
pass. Then I would wheel suddenly, and 
the dust flew up from my four hoofs as I 
turned and we galloped home again, and 
my master was put to bed. And again he 
would ride abroad on another day till we 
came to magical fortresses guarded by 
wizardry and overthrew the dragons at the 
gate, and ever came back with a princess 
fairer than the sea. 

"But my master began to grow larger in 
his body and smaller in his soul, and then 
he rode more seldom upon quests. At last 
he saw gold and never came again, and I 
was cast out here among these little people." 

30 



A Dreamefs Tales 

But while the rocking-horse was speaking 
two boys stole away, unnoticed by their 
parents, from a house on the edge of the 
waste place, and were coming across it look- 
ing for adventures. One of them carried a 
broom, and when he saw the rocking-horse 
he said nothing, but broke off the handle 
from the broom and thrust it between his 
braces and his shirt on the left side. Then 
he mounted the rocking-horse, and drawing 
forth the broomstick, which was sharp and 
spiky at the end, said, "Saladin is in this 
desert with all his paynims, and I am Coeur 
de Lion." After a while the other boy said: 
"Now let me kill Saladin too." But Blag- 
daross in his wooden heart, that exulted 
with thoughts of battle, said: "I am 
Blagdaross yet!" 



31 




The Madness of 
Andelsprutz 



[first saw the city of Andel- 
isprutz on an afternoon in 
'spring. The day was full of 
I sunshine as I came by the way 
_jof the fields, and all that 
morning I had said, "There will be sun- 
Ught on it when I see for the first time the 
beautiful conquered city whose fame has 
so often made for me lovely dreams." Sud- 
denly I saw its fortifications lifting out of 
the fields, and behind them stood its bel- 
fries. I went in by a gate and saw its 
houses and streets, and a great disappoint- 
ment came upon me. For there is an air 
about a city, and it has a way with it, where- 
by a man may recognize one from another 
at once. There are cities full of happiness 
and cities full of pleasure, and cities full of 
gloom. There are cities with their faces to 

32 



A Dreamer's Tales 

heaven, and some with their faces to earth; 
some have a way of looking at the past 
and others look at the future; some notice 
you if you come among them, others glance 
at you, others let you go by. Some love 
the cities that are their neighbours, others 
are dear to the plains and to the heath; 
some cities are bare to the wind, others 
have purple cloaks and others brown cloaks, 
and some are clad in white. Some tell the 
old tale of their infancy, with others it is 
secret; some cities sing and some mutter, 
some are angry, and some have broken 
hearts, and each city has her way of greet- 
ing Time. 

I had said: "I will see Andelsprutz arro- 
gant with her beauty," and I had said: ''I 
will see her weeping over her conquest." 

I had said: "She will sing songs to me," 
and "she will be reticent," "she will be all 
robed," and "she will be bare but splendid." 

But the windows of Andelsprutz in her 
houses looked vacantly over the plains like 
the eyes of a dead madman. At the hour 
her chimes sounded unlovely and discord- 
ant, some of them were out of tune, and 
the bells of some were cracked, her roofs 

33 



A Dreamer's Tales 

were bald and without moss. At evening 
no pleasant rumour arose in her streets. 
When the lamps were lit in the houses no 
mystical flood of Ught stole out into the 
dusk, you merely saw that there were 
lighted lamps; Andelsprutz had no way 
with her and no air about her. When the 
night fell and the blinds were all drawn 
down, then I perceived what I had not 
thought in the daylight. I knew then that 
Andelsprutz was dead. 

I saw a fair-haired man who drank beer 
in a cafe, and I said to him: 

"Why is the city of Andelsprutz quite 
dead, and her soul gone hence?" 

He answered: "Cities do not have souls 
and there is never any Ufe in bricks." 

And I said to him: "Sir, you have 
spoken truly." 

And I asked the same question of another 
man, and he gave me the same answer, and 
I thanked him for his courtesy. And I 
saw a man of a more slender build, who had 
black hair, and channels in his cheeks for 
tears to run in, and I said to him: 

"Why is Andelsprutz quite dead, and 
when did her soul go hencbr" 

34 




THE SOUL OF ANDELSPRUTZ 



A Dreamer's Tales 

And he answered: "Andelsprutz hoped 
too much. For thirty years would she 
stretch out her arms toward the land of 
Akla every night, to Mother Akla from 
whom she had been stolen. Every night 
she would be hoping and sighing, and 
stretching out her arms to Mother Akla. 
At midnight, once a year, on the annivers- 
ary of the terrible day, Akla would send 
spies to lay a wreath against the walls of 
Andelsprutz. She could do no more. And 
on this night, once in every year, I used to 
weep, for weeping was the mood of the city 
that nursed me. Every night while other 
cities slept did Andelsprutz sit brooding 
here and hoping, till thirty wreaths lay 
mouldering by her walls, and still the armies 
of Akla could not come, 

"But after she had hoped so long, and 
on the night that faithful spies had brought 
the thirtieth wreath, Andelsprutz went 
suddenly mad. All the bells clanged hide- 
ously in the belfries, horses bolted in the 
streets, the dogs all howled, the stolid con- 
querors awoke and turned in their beds 
and slept again; and I saw the grey shad- 
owy form of Andelsprutz rise up, decking 

35 



A Dreamefs Tales 

her hair with the phantasms of cathedrals, 
and stride away from her city. And the 
great shadowy form that was the soul of 
Andelsprutz went away muttering to the 
mountains, and there I followed her — for 
had she not been my nurse? Yes, I went 
away alone into the mountains, and for 
three days, wrapped in a cloak, I slept in 
their misty solitudes. I had no food to eat, 
and to drink I had only the water of the 
mountain streams. By day no living thing 
was near to me, and I heard nothing but 
the noise of the wind, and the mountain 
streams roaring. But for three nights I 
heard all round me on the mountain the 
sounds of a great city: I saw the lights of 
tall cathedral windows flash momently on 
the peaks, and at times the glimmering 
lantern of some fortress patrol. And I saw 
the huge misty outline of the soul of Andel- 
sprutz sitting decked with her ghostly 
cathedrals, speaking to herself, with her 
eyes fixed before her in a mad stare, telling 
of ancient wars. And her confused speech 
for all those nights upon the mountain was 
sometimes the voice of traffic, and then of 
church bells, and then of the bugles, but 

36 



A Dreamer's Tales 

oftenest it was the voice of red war; and 
it was all incoherent, and she was quite mad. 

"The third night it rained heavily all 
night long, but I stayed up there to watch 
the soul of my native city. And she still 
sat staring straight before her, raving; but 
her voice was gentler now, there were more 
chimes in it, and occasional song. Mid- 
night passed, and the rain still swept down 
on me, and still the solitudes of the moun- 
tain were full of the mutterings of the poor 
mad city. And the hours after midnight 
came, the cold hours wherein sick men die. 

"Suddenly I was aware of great shapes 
moving in the rain, and heard the sound of 
voices that were not of my city nor yet of 
any that I ever knew. And presently I dis- 
cerned, though faintly, the souls of a great 
concourse of cities, all bending over Andel- 
sprutz and comforting her, and the ravines 
of the mountains roared that night with the 
voices of cities that had lain still for cen- 
turies. For there came the soul of Camelot 
that had so long ago forsaken Usk; and there 
was Ilion, all girt with towers, still cursing 
the sweet face of ruinous Helen; I saw 
there Babylon and Persepolis, and the 

37 



A Dreamer's Tales 

bearded face of bull-like Nineveh, and 
Athens mourning her immortal gods. 

"All these souls of cities that were dead 
spoke that night on the mountain to my 
city and soothed her, until at last she 
mtttered of war no longer, and her eyes 
stared wildly no more, but she hid her face 
in her hands and for some while wept 
softly. At last she arose, and, walking 
slowly and with bended head, and leaning 
upon Ilion and Carthage, went mournfully 
eastwards; and the dust of her highways 
swirled behind her as she went, a ghostly 
dust that never turned to mud in all that 
drenching rain. And so the souls of the 
cities led her away, and gradually they dis- 
appeared from the mountain, and the 
ancient voices died away in the distance, 

"Never since then have I seen my city 
alive; but once I met with a traveller who 
said that somewhere in the midst of a great 
desert are gathered together the souls of 
all dead cities. He said that he was lost 
once in a place where there was no water, 
and he heard their voices speaking all the 
night." 

But I said: "I was once without water 

38 



A Dreamer's Tales 

in a desert and heard a city speaking to 
me, but knew not whether it really spoke 
or not, for on that day I heard so many 
terrible things, and only some of them were 
true.'' 

And the man with the black hair said: 
"I beheve it to be true, though whither 
she went I know not. I only know that 
a shepherd found me in the morning faint 
with hunger and cold, and carried me down 
here; and when I came to Andelsprutz it 
was, as you have perceived it, dead." 



39 



Where the Tides 
Ebb and Flow 



iiJBrW^^ii 



dreamt that I had done a 
horrible thing, so that burial 
was to be denied me either 
in soil or sea, neither could 
there be any hell for me. 



I waited for some hours, knowing this. 
Then my friends came for me, and slew 
me secretly and with ancient rite, and lit 
great tapers, and carried me away. 

It was all in London that the thing was 
done, and they went furtively at dead of 
night along grey streets and among mean 
houses until they came to the river. And 
the river and the tide of the sea were 
grappling with one another between the 
mud-banks, and both of them were black 
and full of lights. A sudden wonder came 
into the eyes of each, as my friends came 
near to them with their glaring tapers. 

40 



A Dreamer's Tales 

All these things I saw as they carried me 
dead and stiffening, for my soul was still 
among my bones, because there was no 
hell for it, and because Christian burial 
was denied me. 

They took me down a stairway that was 
green with slimy things, and so came slowly 
to the terrible mud. There, in the terri- 
tory of forsaken things, they dug a shallow 
grave. When they had finished they laid 
me in the grave, and suddenly they cast 
their tapers to the river. And when the 
water had quenched the flaring lights the 
tapers looked pale and small as they bobbed 
upon the tide, and at once the glamour of 
the calamity was gone, and I noticed then 
the approach of the huge dawn; and my 
friends cast their cloaks over their faces, 
and the solemn procession was turned into 
many fugitives that furtively stole away. 

Then the mud came back wearily and 
covered all but my face. There I lay 
alone with quite forgotten things, with 
drifting things that the tides will take no 
farther, with useless things and lost things, 
and with the horrible unnatural bricks that 
are neither stone nor soil. I was rid of feel- 

41 



A Dreamer's Tales 

ing, because I had been killed, but per- 
ception and thought were in my unhappy- 
soul. The dawn widened, and I saw the 
desolate houses that crowded the marge 
of the river, and their dead windows peered 
into my dead eyes, windows with bales 
behind them instead of human souls. I 
grew so weary looking at these forlorn 
things that I wanted to cry out, but could 
not, because I was dead. Then I knew, as 
I had never known before, that for all the 
years that herd of desolate houses had 
wanted to cry out too, but, being dead, 
were dumb. And I knew then that it had 
yet been well with the forgotten drifting 
things if they had wept, but they were 
eyeless and without life. And I, too, tried 
to weep, but there were no tears in my dead 
eyes. And I knew then that the river 
might have cared for us, might have car- 
essed us, might have sung to us, but he 
swept broadly onwards, thinking of nothing 
but the princely ships. 

At last the tide did what the river would 
not, and came and covered me over, and 
my soul had rest in the green water, and 
rejoiced and believed that it had the Burial 

42 




THE TERRIBLE MUD 



A Dreamefs Tales 

of the Sea. But with the ebb the water 
fell again, and left me alone again with the 
callous mud among the forgotten things 
that drift no more, and with the sight of all 
those desolate houses, and with the know- 
ledge among all of us that each was dead. 

In the mournful wall behind me, hung 
with green weeds, forsaken of the sea, dark 
tunnels appeared, and secret narrow pas- 
sages that were clamped and barred. From 
these at last the stealthy rats came down 
to nibble me away, and my soul rejoiced 
thereat and believed that he would be free 
perforce from the accursed bones to which 
burial was refused. Very soon the rats 
ran away a little space and whispered among 
themselves. They never came any more. 
When I found that I was accursed even 
among the rats I tried to weep again. 

Then the tide came swinging back and 
covered the dreadful mud, and hid the 
desolate houses, and soothed the forgotten 
things, and my soul had ease for a while 
in the sepulture of the sea. And then the 
tide forsook me again. 

To and fro it came about me for many 
years. Then the County Council found 

43 



A Dreamer's Tales 

me, and gave me decent burial. It was the 
first grave that I had ever slept in. That 
very night my friends came for me. They 
dug me up and put me back again in the 
shallow hole in the mud. 

Again and again through the years my 
bones found burial, but always behind the 
funeral lurked one of those terrible men 
who, as soon as night fell, came and dug 
them up and carried them back again to 
the hole in the mud. 

And then one day the last of those men 
died who once had done to me this terrible 
thing. I heard his soul go over the river 
at sunset. 

And again I hoped. 

A few weeks afterwards I was found 
once more, and once more taken out of 
that restless place and given deep burial 
in sacred ground, where my soul hoped 
that it should rest. 

Almost at once men came with cloaks 
and tapers to give me back to the mud, for 
the thing had become a tradition and a rite. 
And all the forsaken things mocked me in 
their dumb hearts when they saw me car- 
ried back, for they were jealous of me 

44 



A Dreamer's Tales 

because I had left the mud. It must be 
remembered that I could not weep. 

And the years went by seawards where 
the black barges go, and the great dereUct 
centuries became lost at sea, and still I 
lay there without any cause to hope, and 
daring not to hope without a cause, be- 
cause of the terrible envy and the anger 
of the things that could drift no more. 

Once a great storm rode up, even as far 
as London^ out of the sea from the South; 
and he came curving into the river with the 
fierce East wind. And he was mightier 
than the dreary tides, and went with great 
leaps over the listless mud. And all the 
sad forgotten things rejoiced, and mingled 
with things that were haughtier than they, 
and rode once more amongst the lordly 
shipping that was driven up and down. 
And out of their hideous home he took my 
bones, never again, I hoped, to be vexed 
with the ebb and flow. And with the fall 
of the tide he went riding down the river 
and turned to the southwards, and so went 
to his home. And my bones he scattered 
among many isles and along the shores of 
happy ahen mainlands. And for a moment, 

45 



A Dreamer's Tales 

while they were far asunder, my soul was 
almost free. 

Then there arose, at the will of the moon, 
the assiduous flow of the tide, and it undid 
at once the work of the ebb, and gathered 
my bones from the marge of sunny isles, 
and gleaned them all along the mainland's 
shores, and went rocking northwards till 
it came to the mouth of the Thames, and 
there turned westwards its relentless face, 
and so went up the river and came to the 
hole in the mud, and into it dropped my 
bones; and partly the mud covered them and 
partly it left them white, for the mud cares 
not for its forsaken things. 

Then the ebb came, and I saw the dead 
eyes of the houses and the jealousy of the 
other forgotten things that the storm had 
not carried thence. 

And some more centuries passed over the 
ebb and flow and over the loneliness of 
things forgotten. And I lay there all the 
while in the careless grip of the mud, never 
wholly covered, yet never able to go free, 
and I longed for the great caress of the 
warm Earth or the comfortable lap of the 
Sea. 

46 



A Dreamer's Tales 

Sometimes men found my bones and 
buried them, but the tradition never died, 
and my friends' successors always brought 
them back. At last the barges went no 
more, and there were fewer lights; shaped 
timbers no longer floated down the 
fair-way, and there came instead old 
wind-uprooted trees in all their natural 
simplicity. 

At last I was aware that somewhere near 
me a blade of grass was growing, and the 
moss began to appear all over the dead 
houses. One day some thistledown went 
drifting over the river. 

For some years I watched these signs 
attentively, until I became certain that 
London was passing away. Then I hoped 
once more, and all along both banks of the 
river there was anger among the lost things 
that anything should dare to hope upon 
the forsaken mud. Gradually the horrible 
houses crumbled, until the poor dead things 
that never had had life got decent burial 
among the weeds and moss. At last the 
may appeared and the convolvulus. Finally, 
the wild rose stood up over mounds that 
had been wharves and warehouses. Then 

47 



A Dreamer's Tales 

I knew that the cause of Nature had 
triumphed, and London had passed away. 

The last man in London came to the wall 
by the river, in an ancient cloak that was 
one of those thai: once my friends had 
worn, and peered over the edge to see that 
I still was there. Then he went, and I 
never saw men again: they had passed 
away with London. 

A few days after the last man had gone 
the birds came into London, all the birds 
that sing. When they first saw me they 
all looked sideways at me, then they went 
away a little and spoke among themselves. 

"He only sinned against Man," they 
said; "it is not our quarrel." 

"Let us be kind to him," they said. 

Then they hopped nearer me and began 
to sing. It was the time of the rising of 
the dawn, and from both banks of the river, 
and from the sky, and from the thickets 
that were once the streets, hundreds of 
birds were singing. As the light increased 
the birds sang more and more; they grew 
thicker and thicker in the air above my 
head, till there were thousands of them 
singing there, and then millions, and at 

48 



A Dreamer's Tales 

last I could see nothing but a host of flicker- 
ing wings with the sunUght on them, and 
little gaps of sky. Then when there was 
nothing to be heard in London but the 
myriad notes of that exultant song, my soul 
rose up from the bones in the hole in the 
mud and began to climb up the song heaven- 
wards. And it seemed that a laneway 
opened amongst the wings of the birds, 
and it went up and up, and one of the 
smaller gates of Paradise stood ajar at the 
end of it. And then I knew by a sign that 
the mud should receive me no more, for 
suddenly I found that I could weep. 

At this moment I opened my eyes in bed 
in a house in London, and outside some 
sparrows were twittering in a tree in the 
light of the radiant morning; and there 
were tears still wet upon my face, for one's 
restraint is feeble while one sleeps. But 
I arose and opened the window wide, and, 
stretching my hands out over the little 
garden, I blessed the birds whose song had 
woken me up from the troubled and terrible 
centuries of my dream. 



49 



Bethmoora 




^>Z\€cM^ here is a faint freshness in the 
London night as though some 
straj^ed reveller of a breeze 
had left his comrades in the 
^Kentish uplands and had en- 
tered the town by stealth. The pavements 
are a little damp and shiny. Upon one's 
ears that at this late hour have become very 
acute there hits the tap of a remote footfall. 
Louder and louder grow the taps, filling 
the whole night. And a black cloaked 
figure passes by, and goes tapping into the 
dark. One who has danced goes home- 
wards. Somewhere a ball has closed its 
doors and ended. Its yellow lights are 
out, its musicians are silent, its dancers 
have all gone into the night air, and Time 
has said of it, " Let it be past and over, and 
among the things that I have put away." 
Shadows begin to detach themselves from 

50 



A Dreamer's Tales 

their great gathering places. No less silent- 
ly than those shadows that are thin and 
dead move homewards the stealthy cats. 
Thus have we even in London our faint 
forebodings of the dawn's approach, which 
the birds and the beasts and the stars 
are crying aloud to the untrammelled fields. 

At what moment I know not I perceive 
that the night itseK is irrecoverably over- 
thrown. It is suddenly revealed to me 
by the weary pallor of the street lamps 
that the streets are silent and nocturnal 
still, not because there is any strength in 
night, but because men have not yet arisen 
from sleep to defy him. So have I seen 
dejected and untidy guards still bearing 
antique muskets in palatial gateways, al- 
though the realms of the monarch that they 
guard have shrunk to a single province 
which no enemy yet has troubled to overrun. 

And it is now manifest from the aspect 
of the street lamps, those abashed depen- 
dants of night, that already Enghsh moun- 
tain peaks have seen the dawn, that the 
cliffs of Dover are standing white to the 
morning, that the sea-mist has lifted and 
is pouring inland. 

61 



A Dreamer's Tales 

And now men with a hose have come 
and are sluicing out the streets. 

Behold now night is dead. 

What memories, what fancies throng one's 
mind! A night but just now gathered out 
of London by the hostile hand of Time. 
A million common artificial things all 
cloaked for a while in mystery, like beggars 
robed in purple, and seated on dread 
thrones. Four million people asleep, dream- 
ing perhaps. What worlds have they gone 
into? Whom have they met? But my 
thoughts are far off with Bethmoora in her 
loneUness, whose gates swing to and fro. 
To and fro they swing, and creak and creak 
in the wind, but no one hears them. They 
are of green copper, very lovely, but no one 
sees them now. The desert wind pours sand 
into their hinges, no watchman comes to ease 
them. No guard goes round Bethmoora's 
battlements, no enemy assails them. There 
are no lights in her houses, no footfall in her 
streets; she stands there dead and lonely 
beyond the Hills of Hap, and I would see 
Bethmoora once again, but dare not. 

It is many a year, as they tell me, since 
Bethmoora became desolate. 

52 



A Dreamer's Tales 

Her desolation is spoken of in taverns 
where sailors meet, and certain travellers 
have told me of it. 

I had hoped to see Bethmoora once 
again. It is many a year ago, they say, 
when the vintage was last gathered in from 
the vineyards that I knew, where it is all 
desert now. It was a radiant day, and the 
people of the city were dancing by the 
vineyards, while here and there one played 
upon the kalipac. The purple flowering 
shrubs were all in bloom, and the snow 
shone upon the Hills of Hap. 

Outside the copper gates they crushed 
the grapes in vats to make the syrabub. 
It had been a goodly vintage. 

In little gardens at the desert's edge men 
beat the tambang and the tittibuk, and 
blew melodiously the zootibar. 

All there was mirth and song and dance, 
because the vintage had been gathered in, 
and there would be ample syrabub for the 
winter months, and much left over to ex- 
change for turquoises and emeralds with 
the merchants who come down from Oxu- 
hahn. Thus they rejoiced all day over 
their vintage on the narrow strip of culti- 

53 



A Dreamer's Tales 

vated ground that lay between Bethmoora 
and the desert which meets the sky to the 
South. And when the heat of the day 
began to abate, and the sun drew near to 
the snows on the Hills of Hap, the note 
of the zootibar still rose clear from the 
gardens, and the brilliant dresses of the 
dancers still wound among the flowers. 
All that day three men on mules had been 
noticed crossing the face of the Hills of 
Hap. Backwards and forwards they moved 
as the track wound lower and lower, three 
little specks of black against the snow. 
They were seen first in the very early 
morning up near the shoulder of Peol 
Jagganoth, and seemed to be coming out 
of Utnar Vehi. All day they came. And 
in the evening, just before lights come out 
and colours change, they appeared before 
Bethmoora's copper gates. They carried 
staves, such as messengers bear in those 
lands, and seemed sombrely clad when the 
dancers all came round them with their 
green and Ulac dresses. Those Europeans 
who were present and heard the message 
given were ignorant of the language, and 
only caught the name of Utnar Vehi. But 

54 



A Dreamer's Tales 

it was brief, and passed rapidly from mouth 
to mouth, and ahnost at once the people 
burnt their vineyards and began to flee 
away from Bethmoora, going for the most 
part northwards, though some went to the 
East. They ran down out of their fair 
white houses, and streamed through the 
copper gate; the throbbing of the tambang 
and the tittibuk suddenly ceased with the 
note of the zootibar, and the clinking kali- 
pac stopped a moment after. The three 
strange travellers went back the way they 
came the instant their message was given. 
It was the hour when a light would have 
appeared in some high tower, and window 
after window would have poured into the 
dusk its Kon-frightening light, and the 
copper gates would have been fastened up. 
But no Ughts came out in windows there 
that night and have not ever since, and those 
copper gates were left wide and have never 
shut, and the sound arose of the red fire 
crackUng in the vineyards, and the patter- 
ing of feet fleeing softly. There were no 
cries, no other sounds at all, only the rapid 
and determined flight. They fled as swiftly 
and quietly as a herd of wild cattle flee 

55 



A Dreamer's Tales 

when they suddenly see a man. It was 
as though something had befallen which 
had been feared for generations, which 
could only be escaped by instant flight, 
which left no time for indecision. 

Then fear took the Europeans also, and 
they too fled. And what the message was 
I have never heard. 

Many beUeve that it was a message from 
Thuba Mleen, the mysterious emperor of 
those lands, who is never seen by man, 
advising that Bethmoora should be left 
desolate. Others say that the message was 
one of warning from the gods, whether 
from friendly gods or from adverse ones 
they know not. 

And others hold that the Plague was 
ravaging a line of cities over in Utnar Vehi, 
following the South-west wind which for 
many weeks had been blowing across them 
towards Bethmoora. 

Some say that the terrible gnousar sick- 
ness was upon the three travellers, and that 
their very mules were dripping with it, 
and suppose that they were driven to the 
city by hunger, but suggest no better reason 
for so terrible a crime. 

56 



A Dreamer's Tales 

But most believe that it was a message 
from the desert himself, who owns all the 
Earth to the southwards, spoken with his 
peculiar cry to those three who knew his 
voice — men who had been out on the sand- 
wastes without tents by night, who had 
been by day without water, men who had 
been out there where the desert mutters, 
and had grown to know his needs and his 
malevolence. They say that the desert had 
a need for Bethmoora, that he wished to 
come into her lovely streets, and to send 
into her temples and her houses his storm- 
winds draped with sand. For he hates the 
sound and the sight of men in his old evil 
heart, and he would have Bethmoora silent 
and undisturbed, save for the weird love 
he whispers at her gates. 

If I knew what that message was that 
the three men brought on mules, and told 
in the copper gate, I think that I should 
go and see Bethmoora once again. For a 
great longing comes on me here in London 
to see once more that white and beautiful 
city; and yet I dare not, for I know not the 
danger I should have to face, whether I 
should risk the fury of unknown dreadful 

57 



A Dreamer's Tales 

gods, or some disease unspeakable and slow, 
or the desert's curse, or torture in some 
little private room of the Emperor Thuba 
Mleen, or something that the travellers 
have not told — perhaps more fearful still. 



58 



Idle Days on the 
Yann 




o I came down through the 
wood to the bank of Yann 
and found, as had been proph- 
esied, the ship Bird of the 
River about to loose her cable. 
The captain sate cross-legged upon the 
white deck with his scimitar lying beside 
him in its jewelled scabbard, and the sailors 
toiled to spread the nimble sails to bring 
the ship into the central stream of Yann, 
and all the while sang ancient soothing 
songs. And the wind of the evening des- 
cending cool from the snowfields of some 
mountainous abode of distant gods came 
suddenly, like glad tidings to an anxious 
city, into the wing-like sails. 

And so we came into the central stream, 
whereat the sailors lowered the greater sails. 

£i9 



A Dreamer's Tales 

But I had gone to bow before the captain, 
and to inquire concerning the miracles, 
and appearances among men, of the most 
holy gods of whatever land he had come 
from. And the captain answered that he 
came from fair Belzoond, and worshipped 
gods that were the least and humblest, who 
seldom sent the famine or the thunder, and 
were easily appeased with little battles. 
And I told how I came from Ireland, which 
is of Europe, whereat the captain and all 
the sailors laughed, for they said, "There 
are no such places in all the land of dreams." 
When they had ceased to mock me, I 
explained that my fancy mostly dwelt in 
the desert of Cuppar-Nombo, about a beau- 
tiful blue city called Golthoth the Damned, 
which was sentinelled all round by wolves 
and their shadows, and had been utterly 
desolate for years and years, because of 
a curse which the gods once spoke in anger 
and could never since recall. And some- 
times my dreams took me as far as Pungar 
Vees, the red walled city where the foun- 
tains are, which trades with the Isles and 
Thul. When I said this they complimented 
me upon the abode of my fancy, saying 

60 




BIRD OF THE RIVER 



>? 



A Dreamefs Tales 

that, though they had never seen these 
cities, such places might well be imagined. 
For the rest of that evening I bargained 
with the captain over the sum that I 
should pay him for my fare if God and 
the tide of Yann should bring us safely 
as far as the cliffs by the sea, which 
are named Bar- Wul- Yann, the Gate of 
Yann. 

And now the sun had set, and all the 
colors of the world and heaven had held 
a festival with him, and slipped one by one 
away before the imminent approach of 
night. The parrots had all flown home to 
the jungle on either bank, the monkeys in 
rows in safety on high branches of the trees 
were silent and asleep, the fireflies in the 
deeps of the forest were going up and down, 
and the great stars came gleaming out to 
look on the face of Yann. Then the sailors 
lighted lanterns and hung them round the 
ship, and the light flashed out on a sudden 
and dazzled Yann, and the ducks that 
fed along his marshy banks all suddenly 
arose, and made wide circles in the upper 
air, and saw the distant reaches of the 
Yann and the white mist that softly cloaked 

61 



A Dreamer's Tales 

the jungle, before they returned again into 
their marshes. 

And then the sailors knelt on the decks 
and prayed, not all together, but five or six 
at a time. Side by side there kneeled 
down together five or six, for there only 
prayed at the same time men of different 
faiths, so that no god should hear two men 
praying to him at once. As soon as any 
one had finished his prayer, another of 
the same faith would take his place. Thus 
knelt the row of five or six with bended 
heads under the fluttering sail, while the 
central stream of the River Yann took 
them on towards the sea, and their prayers 
rose up from among the lanterns and 
went towards the stars. And behind them 
in the after end of the ship the helmsman 
prayed aloud the helmsman's prayer, which 
is prayed by all who follow his trade upon 
the River Yann, of whatever faith they 
be. And the captain prayed to his little 
lesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond. 

And I too felt that I would pray. Yet 
I liked not to pray to a jealous God there 
where the frail affectionate gods whom the 
heathen love were being humbly invoked; 

62 



A Dreamer's Tales 

so I bethought me, instead, of Sheol Nug- 
ganoth, whom the men of the jungle have 
long since deserted, who is now unwor- 
shipped and alone; and to him I prayed. 

And upon us praying the night came 
suddenly down, as it comes upon all men 
who pray at evening and upon all men 
who do not; yet our prayers comforted our 
own souls when we thought of the Great 
Night to come. 

And so Yann bore us magnificently on- 
wards, for he was elate with molten snow 
that the Poltiades had brought him from 
the Hills of Hap, and the Marn and Migris 
were swollen full with floods; and he bore 
us in his might past Kyph and Pir, and 
we saw the lights of Goolunza. 

Soon we all slept except the helmsman, 
who kept the ship in the mid-stream of 
Yann. 

When the sun rose the helmsman ceased 
to sing, for by song he cheered himself in 
the lonely night. When the song ceased 
we suddenly all awoke, and another took 
the helm, and the helmsman slept. 

We knew that soon we should come to 
Mandaroon. We made a meal, and Man- 
es 



A Dreamer's Tales 

daroon appeared. Then the captain com- 
manded, and the sailors loosed again the 
greater sails, and the ship turned and left 
the stream of Yann and came into a harbour 
beneath the ruddy walls of Mandaroon. 
Then while the sailors went and gathered 
fruits I came alone to the gate of Man- 
daroon. A few huts were outside it, in 
which Uved the guard. A sentinel with a 
long white beard was standing in the gate, 
armed with a rusty pike. He wore large 
spectacles, which were covered with dust. 
Through the gate I saw the city. A deathly 
stillness was over all of it. The ways 
seemed untrodden, and moss was thick on 
doorsteps; in the market-place huddled 
figures lay asleep. A scent of incense came 
wafted through the gateway, of incense 
and burned poppies, and there was a hum 
of the echoes of distant bells. I said to 
the sentinel in the tongue of the region of 
Yann, "Why are they all asleep in this 
stiU city?" 

He answered: "None may ask questions 
in this gate for fear they wake the people 
of the city. For when the people of this 
city wake the gods will die. And when 

64 



A Dreamer's Tales 

the gods die men may dream no more." 
And I began to ask him what gods that 
city worshipped, but he lifted his pike be- 
cause none might ask questions there. 
So I left him and went back to the Bird 
of the River, 

Certainly Mandaroon was beautiful with 
her white pinnacles peering over her ruddy 
walls and the green of her copper roofs. 

When I came back again to the Bird of 
the River, I found the sailors were returned 
to the ship. Soon we weighed anchor, 
and sailed out again, and so came once 
more to the middle of the river. And now 
the sun was moving toward his heights, 
and there had reached us on the River 
Yann the song of those countless myriads 
of choirs that attend him in his progress round 
the world. For the little creatures that 
have many legs had spread their gauze 
wings easily on the air, as a man rests his 
elbows on a balcony and gave jubilant, 
ceremonial praises to the sun, or else they 
moved together on the air in wavering 
dances intricate and swift, or turned aside 
to avoid the onrush of some drop of water 
that a breeze had shaken from a jungle 

65 



A Dreamer's Tales 

orchid, chilling the air and driving it before 
it, as it fell whirring in its rush to the earth; 
but all the while they sang triumphantly. 
"For the day is for us," they said, "whether 
our great and sacred father the Sun shall 
bring up more life like us from the marshes, 
or whether all the world shall end to-night." 
And there sang all those whose notes are 
known to human ears, as well as those 
whose far more numerous notes have been 
never heard by man. 

To these a rainy day had been as an 
era of war that should desolate continents 
during all the lifetime of a man. 

And there came out also from the dark 
and steaming jungle to behold and rejoice 
in the Sun the huge and lazy butterflies. 
And they danced, but danced idly, on the 
ways of the air, as some haughty queen of 
distant conquered lands might in her pov- 
erty and exile dance, in some encampment 
of the gipsies, for the mere bread to live by, 
but beyond that would never abate her 
pride to dance for a fragment more. 

And the butterflies sung of strange and 
painted things, of purple orchids and of 
lost pink cities and the monstrous colours 

66 



A Dreamer's Tales 

of the jungle's decay. And they, too, were 
among those whose voices are not discern- 
ible by human ears. And as they floated 
above the river, going from forest to forest, 
their splendour was matched by the inimical 
beauty of the birds who darted out to 
pursue them. Or sometimes they settled 
on the white and wax-Kke blooms of the 
plant that creeps and clambers about the 
trees of the forest; and their purple wings 
flashed out on the great blossoms as, when 
the caravans go from Nurl to Thace, the 
gleaming silks flash out upon the snow, 
where the crafty merchants spread them 
one by one to astonish the mountaineers 
of the Hills of Noor. 

But upon men and beasts the sun sent 
a drowsiness. The river monsters along 
the river's marge lay dormant in the slime. 
The sailors pitched a pavillion, with golden 
tassels, for the captain upon the deck, and 
then went, all but the helmsman, under a 
sail that they had hung as an awning 
between two masts. Then they told tales 
to one another, each of his own city or of 
the miracles of his god, until all were fallen 
asleep. The captain offered me the shade 

67 



A Dreamer's Tales 

of his pavilion with the gold tassels, and 
there we talked for awhile, he teUing me 
that he was taking merchandise to Per- 
dondaris, and that he would take back to 
fair Belzoond things appertaining to the 
affairs of the sea. Then, as I watched 
through the paviHon's opening the brilUant 
birds and butterflies that crossed and re- 
crossed over the river, I fell asleep, and 
dreamed that I was a monarch entering his 
capital underneath arches of flags, and all 
the musicians of the world were there, 
playing melodiously their instruments; but 
no one cheered. 

In the afternoon, as the day grew cooler 
again, I awoke and found the captain buck- 
Ung on his scimitar, which he had taken off 
him while he rested. 

And now we were approaching the wide 
court of Astahahn, which opens upon the 
river. Strange boats of antique design were 
chained there to the steps. As we neared 
it we saw the open marble court, on three 
sides of which stood the city fronting on 
colonnades. And in the court and along 
the colonnades the people of that city 
walked with solemnity and care according 

68 



A Dreamer's Tales 

to the rites of ancient ceremony. All in 
that city was of ancient device; the carving 
on the houses, which, when age had broken 
it, remained unrepaired, was of the remotest 
times, and everywhere were represented in 
stone beasts that have long since passed 
away from Earth — the dragon, the griffin, 
and the hippogriffin, and the different spe- 
cies of gargoyle. Nothing was to be found, 
whether material or custom, that was new 
in Astahahn. Now they took no notice at 
all of us as we went by, but continued their 
processions and ceremonies in the ancient 
city, and the sailors, knowing their custom, 
took no notice of them. But I called, as 
we came near, to one who stood beside the 
water's edge, asking him what men did in 
Astahahn and what their merchandise was, 
and with whom they traded. He said, 
"Here we have fettered and manacled 
Time, who would otherwise slay the gods." 
I asked him what gods they worshipped 
in that city, and he said, "All those gods 
whom Time has not yet slain." Then he 
turned from me and would say no more, 
but busied himself in behaving in accordance 
with ancient custom. And so, according 

69 



A Dreamefs Tales 

to the will of Yann, we drifted onwards 
and left Astahahn. The river widened be- 
low Astahahn, and we found in greater 
quantities such birds as prey on fishes. And 
they were very wonderful in their plumage, 
and they came not out of the jungle, but flew, 
with their long necks stretched out before 
them, and their legs lying on the wind behind, 
straight up the river over the mid-stream. 

And now the evening began to gather 
in. A thick white mist had appeared over 
the river, and was softly rising higher. 
It clutched at the trees with long impalp- 
able arms, it rose higher and higher, chilling 
the air; and white shapes moved away into 
the jungle as though the ghosts of ship- 
wrecked mariners were searching stealthily 
in the darkness for the spirits of evil that 
long ago had wrecked them on the Yann. 

As the sun sank behind the field of 
orchids that grew on the matted summit 
of the jungle, the river monsters came 
wallowing out of the slime in which they 
had reclined during the heat of the day, 
and the great beasts of the jungle came 
down to drink. The butterfles a while 
since were gone to rest. In Uttle narrow 

70 



A Dreamer's Tales 

tributaries that we passed night seemed 
already to have fallen, though the sun which 
had disappeared from us had not yet set. 

And now the birds of the jungle came 
flying home far over us, with the sunlight 
glisten ng pink upon their breasts, and 
lowered their pinions as soon as they saw 
the Yann, and dropped into the trees. And 
the widgeon began to go up the river in 
great companies, all whistling, and then 
would suddenly wheel and all go down 
again. And there shot by us the small and 
arrow-like teal; and we heard the manifold 
cries of flocks of geese, which the sailors 
told, me had recently come in from cross- 
ing over the Lispasian ranges; every year 
they come by the same way, close by the 
peak of Mluna, leaving it to the left, and 
the mountain eagles know the way they 
come and — men say — the very hour, and 
every year they expect them by the same 
way as soon as the snows have fallen upon 
the Northern Plains. But soon it grew so 
dark that we saw these birds no more, and 
only heard the whirring of their wings, and 
of countless others besides, until they all 
settled down along the banks of the river, 

71 



A Dreamer's Tales 

and it was the hour when the birds of the 
night went forth. Then the sailors ht the 
lanterns for the night, and huge moths 
appeared, flapping about the ship, and at 
moments their gorgeous colours would be 
revealed by the lanterns, then they would 
pass into the night again, where all was 
black. And again the sailors prayed, 
and thereafter we supped and slept, and 
the helmsman took our lives into his care. 

When I awoke I found that we had 
indeed come to Perdondaris, that famous 
city. For there it stood upon the left of 
us, a city fair and notable, and all the 
more pleasant for our eyes to see after 
the jungle that was so long with us. And 
we were anchored by the market-place, and 
the captain's merchandise was all displayed, 
and a merchant of Perdondaris stood look- 
ing at it. And the captain had his scimi- 
tar in his hand, and was beating with it 
in anger upon the deck, and the splinters 
were flying up from the white planks; for 
the merchant had offered him a price for 
his merchandise that the captain declared 
to be an insult to himself and his country's 
gods, whom he now said to be great and 

72 



A Dreamer's Tales 

terrible gods, whose curses were to be 
dreaded. But the merchant waved his 
hands, which were of great fatness, show- 
ing the pink pahns, and swore that of him- 
seK he thought not at all, but only of the 
poor folk in the huts beyond the city to 
whom he wished to sell the merchandise 
for as low a price as possible, leaving no 
remuneration for himself. For the mer- 
chandise was mostly the thick toomarund 
carpets that in the winter keep the wind 
from the floor, and tollub which the people 
smoke in pipes. Therefore the merchant 
said if he offered a piffek more the poor 
folk must go without their toomarunds 
when the winter came, and without their 
tollub in the evenings, or else he and his 
aged father must starve together. Thereat 
the captain lifted his scimitar to his own 
throat, saying that he was now a ruined 
man, and that nothing remained to him 
but death. And while he was carefully 
hfting his beard with his left hand, the 
merchant eyed the merchandise again, and 
said that rather than see so worthy a 
captain die, a man for whom he had con- 
ceived an especial love when first he saw 

73 



A Dreamer's Tales 

the manner in which he handled his ship, 
he and his aged father should starve to- 
gether and therefore he offered fifteen pif- 
feks more. 

When he said this the captain prostrated 
himself and prayed to his gods that they 
might yet sweeten this merchant's bitter 
heart — to his little lesser gods, to the gods 
that bless Belzoond. 

At last the merchant offered yet five 
piffeks more. Then the captain wept, for 
he said that he was deserted of his gods; 
and the merchant also wept, for he said 
that he was thinking of his aged father, and 
of how he soon would starve, and he hid 
his weeping face with both his hands, and 
eyed the toUub again between his fingers. 
And so the bargain was concluded, and 
the merchant took the toomarund and tol- 
lub, paying for them out of a great clinking 
purse. And these were packed up into 
bales again, and three of the merchant's 
slaves carried them upon their heads into 
the city. And all the while the sailors had 
sat silent, cross-legged in a crescent upon 
the deck, eagerly watching the bargain, 
and now a murmur of satisfaction arose 

74 



A Dreamefs Tales 

among them, and they began to compare 
it among themselves with other bargains 
that they had known. And I found out 
from them that there are seven merchants 
in Perdondaris, and that they had all come 
to the captain one by one before the bargain- 
ing began, and each had warned him pri- 
vately against the others. And to all the 
merchants the captain had offered the wine 
of his own country, that they make in fair 
Belzoond, but could in no wise persuade 
them to it. But now that the bargain was 
over,, and the sailors were seated at the 
first meal of the day, the captain appeared 
among them with a cask of that wine, and 
we broached it with care and all made 
merry together. And the captain was 
glad in his heart because he knew that he 
had much honour in the eyes of his men 
because of the bargain that he had made. 
So the sailors drank the wine of their native 
land, and soon their thoughts were back 
in fair Belzoond and the little neighbour- 
ing cities of Durl and Duz. 

But for me the captain poured into a 
little glass some heavy yellow wine from a 
small jar which he kept apart among his 

75 



A Dreamer's Tales 

sacred things. Thick and sweet it was, 
even like honey, yet there was in its heart 
a mighty, ardent fire which had authority 
over souls of men. It was made, the cap- 
tain told me, with great subtlety by the 
secret craft of a family of six who lived 
in a hut on the mountains of Hian Min. 
Once in these mountains, he said, he fol- 
lowed the spoor of a bear, and he came 
suddenly on a man of that family who had 
hunted the same bear, and he was at the 
end of a narrow way with precipice all about 
him, and his spear was sticking in the bear, 
and the wound not fatal, and he had no 
other weapon. And the bear was walking 
towards the man, very slowly because his 
wound irked him — yet he was now very 
close. And what the captain did he would 
not say, but every year as soon as the snows 
are hard, and travelling is easy on the Hian 
Min, that man comes down to the market 
in the plains, and always leaves for the 
captain in the gate of fair Belzoond a vessel 
of that priceless secret wine. 

And as I sipped the wine and the captain 
talked, I remembered me of stalwart noble 
things that I had long since resolutely 

76 



A Dreamer's Tales - 

planned, and my soul seemed to grow 
mightier within me and to dominate the 
whole tide of the Yann. It may be that 
I then slept. Or, if I did not, I do not now 
minutely recollect every detail of that morn- 
ing's occupations. Towards evening, I 
awoke and wishing to see Perdondaris before 
we left in the morning, and being unable to 
wake the captain, I went ashore alone. 
Certainly Perdondaris was a powerful city; 
it was encompassed by a wall of great 
strength and altitude, having in it hollow 
ways for troops to walk in, and battle- 
ments along it all the way, and fifteen 
strong towers on it in every mile, and 
copper plaques low down where men could 
read them, telling in all the languages 
of those parts of the Earth — one language 
on each plaque — the tale of how an army 
once attacked Perdondaris and what befel 
that army. Then I entered Perdondaris 
and found all the people dancing, clad in 
brilliant silks, and playing on the tambang 
as they danced. For a fearful thunder- 
storm had terrified them while I slept, 
and the fires of death, they said, had 
danced over Perdondaris, and now the 

77 



A Dreamer's Tales 

thunder had gone leaping away large and 
black and hideous, they said, over the 
distant hills, and had turned round snarling 
at them, showing his gleaming teeth, and 
had stamped, as he went, upon the hill- 
tops until they rang as though they had been 
bronze. And often and again they stopped 
in their merry dances and prayed to the 
God they knew not, saying, "0, God that 
we know not, we thank Thee for sending 
the thunder back to his hills." And I 
went on and came to the market-place, 
and lying there upon the marble pavement 
I saw the merchant fast asleep and breath- 
ing heavily, with his face and the palms 
of his hands towards the sky, and slaves 
were fanning him to keep away the flies. 
And from the market-place I came to a 
silver temple and then to a palace of onyx, 
and there were many wonders in Perdondaris, 
and I would have stayed and seen them all, 
but as I came to the outer wall of the 
city I suddenly saw in it a huge ivory 
gate. For a while I paused and admired 
it, then I came nearer and perceived the 
dreadful truth. The gate was carved out 
of one soUd piece! 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

I fled at once through the gateway and 
down to the ship, and even as I ran I 
thought that I heard far off on the hills 
behind me the tramp of the fearful beast 
by whom that mass of ivory was shed, 
who was perhaps even then looking for 
his other tusk. When I was on the ship 
again I felt safer, and I said nothing to 
the sailors of what I had seen. 

And now the captain was gradually awak- 
ening. Now night was rolling up from the 
East and North, and only the pinnacles 
of the towers of Perdondaris still took the 
fallen sunlight. Then I went to the cap- 
tain and told him quietly of the thing I had 
seen. And he questioned me at once about 
the gate, in a low voice, that the sailors 
might not know; and I told him how the 
weight of the thing was such that it could 
not have been brought from afar, and the 
captain knew that it had not been there a 
year ago. We agreed that such a beast 
could never have been killed by any assault 
of man, and that the gate must have been 
a fallen tusk, and one fallen near and 
recently. Therefore he decided that it were 
better to flee at once; so he commanded, 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

and the sailors went to the sails, and others 
raised the anchor to the deck, and just as 
the highest pinnacale of marble lost the last 
rays of the sun we left Perdondaris, that 
famous city. And night came down and 
cloaked Perdondaris and hid it from our 
eyes, which as things have happened will 
never see it again; for I have heard since 
that something swift and wonderful has 
suddenly wrecked Perdondaris in a day — 
towers, and walls, and people. 

And the night deepened over the River 
Yann, a night all white with stars. And 
with the night there rose the helmsman's 
song. As soon as he had prayed he began 
to sing to cheer himself all through the 
lonely night. But first he prayed, praying 
the helmsman's prayer. And this is what I 
remember of it, rendered into English with 
a very feeble equivalent of the rhythm 
that seemed so resonant in those tropic 
nights. 

To whatever god may hear. 

Wherever there be sailors whether of 
river or sea: whether their way be dark 
or whether through storm: whether their 
peril be of beast or of rock: or from enemy 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

lurking on land or pursuing on sea: wher- 
ever the tiller is cold or the helmsman stiff: 
wherever sailors sleep or helmsmen watch: 
guard, guide, and return us to the old 
land, that has known us: to the far homes 
that we know. 

To all the gods that are. 
To whatever god may hear. 

So he prayed, and there was silence. 
And the sailors laid them down to rest for 
the night. The silence deepened, and was 
only broken by the ripples of Yann that 
lightly touched our prow. Sometimes some 
monster of the river coughed. 

Silence and ripples, ripples and silence 
again. 

And then his loneliness came upon the 
helmsman, and he began to sing. And he 
sang the market songs of Durl and Duz, 
and the old dragon-legends of Belzoond. 

Many a song he sang, telling to spacious 
and exotic Yann the little tales and trifles 
of his city of Durl. And the songs welled 
up over the black jungle and came into 
the clear cold air above, and the great 
bands of stars that look on Yann began to 

81 



A Dreamefs Tales 

know the affairs of Durl and Duz, and of 
the shepherds that dwelt in the fields be- 
tween, and the flocks that they had, and 
the loves that they had loved, and all the 
little things that they hoped to do. And 
as I lay wrapped up in skins and blankets, 
listening to those songs, and watching the 
fantastic shapes of the great trees like to 
black giants stalking through the night, I 
suddenly fell asleep. 

When I awoke great mists were trailing 
away from the Yann. And the flow of 
the river was tumbling now tumultuously, 
and little waves appeared; for Yann had 
scented from afar the ancient crags of 
Glorm, and knew that their ravines lay 
cool before him wherein he should meet 
the merry wild Irillion rejoicing from fields 
of snow. So he shook off from him the 
torpid sleep that had come upon him in 
the hot and scented jungle, and forgot its 
orchids and its butterflies, and swept on 
turbulent, expectant, strong; and soon 
the snowy peaks of the Hills of Glorm came 
glittering into view. And now the sailors 
were waking up from sleep. Soon we all 
eat, and then the helmsman laid him down 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

to sleep while a comrade took his place, and 
they all spread over him their choicest 
furs. 

And in a while we heard the sound that 
the Irillion made as she came down dancing 
from the fields of snow. 

And then we saw the ravine in the Hills 
of Glorm lying precipitous and smooth be- 
fore us, into which we were carried by the 
leaps of Yann. And now we left the steamy 
jungle and breathed the mountain air; the 
sailors stood up and took deep breaths of 
it, and thought of their own far-off Acroctian 
hills on which were Durl and Duz — ^below 
them in the plains stands fair Belzoond. 

A great shadow brooded between the 
cUffs of Glorm, but the crags were shining 
above us like gnarled moons, and almost 
Ut the gloom. Louder and louder came the 
Irillion's song, and the sound of her dancing 
down from the fields of snow. And soon 
we saw her white and full of mists, and 
wreathed with rainbows delicate and small 
that she had plucked up near the mountain's 
summit from some celestial garden of the 
Sun. Then she went away seawards with 
the huge grey Yann and the ravine widened, 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

and opened upon the world, and our rock- 
ing ship came through to the Ught of the day. 

And all that morning and all the after- 
noon we passed through the marshes of 
Pondoovery; and Yann widened there, and 
flowed solemnly and slowly, and the cap- 
tain bade the sailors beat on bells to over- 
come the dreariness of the marshes. 

At last the Irusian mountains came in 
sight, nursing the villages of Pen-Kai and 
Blut, and the wandering streets of Mlo, 
where priests propitiate the avalanche with 
wine and maize. Then night came down 
over the plains of Tlun, and we saw the 
hghts of Cappadarnia. We heard the Path- 
nites beating upon drums as we passed 
Imaut and Golzunda, then all but the 
helmsman slept. And villages scattered 
along the banks of the Yann heard all that 
night in the helmsman's unknown tongue 
the little songs of cities that they knew not. 

I awoke before dawn with a feeling that 
I was unhappy before I remembered why. 
Then I recalled that by the evening of the 
approaching day, according to all foreseen 
probabilities, we should come to Bar-Wul- 
Yann, and I should part from the captain 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

and his sailors. And I had liked the man 
because he had given me of his yellow wine 
that was set apart among his sacred things, 
and many a story he had told me about his 
fair Belzoond between the Acroctian hills and 
the Hian Min. And I had Hked the ways 
that his sailors had, and the prayers that 
they prayed at evening side by side, grudg- 
ing not one another their ahen gods. And 
I had a liking too for the tender way in 
which they often spoke of Durl and Duz, 
for it is good that men should love their 
native cities and the little hills that hold 
those cities up. 

And I had come to know who would 
meet them when they returned to their 
homes, and where they thought the meet- 
ings would take place, some in a valley 
of the Acroctian hills where the road comes 
up from Yann, others in the gateway of 
one or another of the three cities, and others 
by the fireside in the home. And I thought 
of the danger that had menaced us all 
alike outside Perdondaris, a danger that, 
as things have happened, was very real. 

And I thought too of the helmsman's 
cheery song in the cold and lonely night, 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

and how he had held our hves in his careful 
hands. And as I thought of this the helms- 
man ceased to sing, and I looked up and 
saw a pale Ught had appeared in the sky, 
and the lonely night had passed; and the 
dawn widened, and the sailors awoke. 

And soon we saw the tide of the Sea 
himself advancing resolute between Yann's 
borders, and Yann sprang lithely at him 
and they struggled awhile; then Yann and 
all that was his were pushed back north- 
ward, so that the sailors had to hoist the 
sails and, the wind being favorable, we 
still held onwards. 

And we passed Gondara and Narl and 
Haz. And we saw memorable, holy Gol- 
nuz, and heard the pilgrims praying. 

When we awoke after the midday rest 
we were coming near to Nen, the last of 
the cities on the River Yann. And the 
jungle was all about us once again, and 
about Nen; but the great Mloon ranges 
stood up over all things, and watched the 
city from beyond the jungle. 

Here we anchored, and the captain and 
I went up into the city and found that the 
Wanderers had come into Nen. 

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A Dreamer's I ales 

And the Wanderers were a weird, dark 
tribe, that once in every seven years came 
down from the peaks of Mloon, having 
crossed by a pass that is known to them 
from some fantastic land that lies beyond. 
And the people of Nen were all outside 
their houses, and all stood wondering at 
their own streets. For the men and women 
of the Wanderers had crowded all the ways, 
and every one was doing some strange 
thing. Some danced astounding dances 
that they had learned from the desert wind, 
rapidly curving and swirling till the eye 
could follow no longer. Others played up- 
on instruments beautiful waiUng tunes that 
were full of horror, which souls had taught 
them lost by night in the desert, that strange 
far desert from which the Wanderers 
came. 

None of their instruments were such 
as were known in Nen nor in any part 
of the region of the Yann; even the horns 
out of which some were made were of 
beasts that none had seen along the river, 
for they were barbed at the tips. And 
they sang, in the language of none, songs 
that seemed to be akin to the mysteries of 

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A Dreamefs Tales 

night and to the unreasoned fear that 
haunts dark places. 

Bitterly all the dogs of Nen distrusted 
them. And the Wanderers told one an- 
other fearful tales, for though no one in 
Nen knew ought of their language yet they 
could see the fear on the Usteners' faces, 
and as the tale wound on the whites of 
their eyes showed vividly in terror as the 
eyes of some little beast whom the hawk 
has seized. Then the teller of the tale 
would smile and stop, and another would 
tell his story, and the teller of the first 
tale's lips would chatter with fear. And if 
some deadly snake chanced to appear the 
Wanderers would greet him as a brother, 
and the snake would seem to give his greet- 
ings to them before he passed on again. 
Once that most fierce and lethal of tropic 
snakes, the giant lythra, came out of the 
jungle and all down the street, the central 
street of Nen, and none of the Wanderers 
moved away from him, but they all played 
sonorously on drums, as though he had 
been a person of much honour; and the 
snake moved through the midst of them 
and smote none. 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

Even the Wanderers' children could do 
strange things, for if any one of them met 
with a child of Nen the two would stare 
at each other in silence with large grave 
eyes; then the Wanderers' child would 
slowly draw from his turban a live fish or 
snake. And the children of Nen could do 
nothing of that kind at all. 

Much I should have wished to stay and 
hear the hymn with which they greet the 
night, that is answered by the wolves on 
the heights of Mloon, but it was now time 
to raise the anchor again that the captain 
might return from Bar-Wul-Yann upon 
the landward tide. So we went on board 
and continued down the Yann. And the 
captain and I spoke little, for we were 
thinking of our parting, which should be 
for long, and we watched instead the 
splendour of the westerning sun. For the 
sun was a ruddy gold, but a faint mist 
cloaked the jungle, lying low, and into it 
poured the smoke of the little jungle cities, 
and the smoke of them met together in the 
mist and joined into one haze, which be- 
came purple, and was lit by the sun, as 
the thoughts of men become hallowed by 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

some great and sacred thing. Some times 
one column from a lonely house would rise 
up higher than the cities' smoke, and gleam 
by itself in the sun. 

And now as the sun's last rays were 
nearly level, we saw the sight that I had 
come to see, for from two mountains that 
stood on either shore two cliffs of pink 
marble came out into the river, all glowing 
in the light of the low sun, and they 
were quite smooth and of mountainous 
altitude, and they nearly met, and Yann 
went tumbling between them and found 
the sea. 

And this was Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of 
Yann, and in the distance through that bar- 
rier's gap I saw the azure indescribable 
sea, where little fishing-boats went gleam- 
ing by. 

And the sun set, and the brief twilight 
came, and the exultation of the glory of 
Bar-Wul-Yann was gone, yet still the pink 
cliffs glowed, the fairest marvel that the 
eye beheld — and this in a land of wonders. 
And soon the twilight gave place to the 
coming out of stars, and the colours of 
Bar-Wul-Yann went dwindling away. And 

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THE GATE OF YANN 



A Dreamer's Tales 

the sight of those cliffs was to me as some 
chord of music that a master's hand had 
launched from the violin, and which carries 
to Heaven or Faery the tremulous spirits of 
men. 

And now by the shore they anchored 
and went no further, for they were sailors 
of the river and not of the sea, and knew 
the Yann but not the tides beyond. 

And the time was come when the captain 
and I must part, he to go back again to his 
fair Belzoond in sight of the distant peaks 
of the Hian Min, and I to find my way by 
strange means back to those hazy fields 
that all poets know, wherein stand small 
mysterious cottages through whose win- 
dows, looking westwards, you may see the 
fields of men, and looking eastwards see 
glittering elfin mountains, tipped with snow, 
going range on range into the region of 
Myth, and beyond it into the kingdom of 
Fantasy, which pertain to the Lands of 
Dream. Long we regarded one another, 
knowing that we should meet no more, for 
my fancy is weakening as the years slip by, 
and I go ever more seldom into the Lands 
of Dream. Then we clasped hands, un- 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

couthly on his part, for it is not the method 
of greeting in his country, and he com- 
mended my soul to the care of his own 
gods, to his little lesser gods, the humble 
ones, to the gods that bless Belzoond. 



92 



The Sword and the 

Idol 




|t was a cold winter's evening 
late in the Stone Age; the sun 
'had gone down blazing over 
I the plains of Thold; there 
,were no clouds, only the chill 
blue sky and the imminence of stars; and 
the surface of the sleeping Earth began to 
harden against the cold of the night. Pres- 
ently from their lairs arose, and shook 
themselves and went stealthily forth, those 
of Earth's children to whom it is the law to 
prowl abroad as soon as the dusk has fallen. 
And they went pattering softly over the 
plain, and their eyes shone in the dark, 
and crossed and recrossed one another in 
their courses. Suddenly there became mani- 
fest in the midst of the plain that fearful 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

portent of the presence of Man — a little 
flickering fire. And the children of Earth 
who prowl abroad by night looked side- 
ways at it and snarled and edged away; 
all but the wolves, who came a little nearer, 
for it was winter and the wolves were 
hungry, and they had come in thousands 
from the mountains, and they said in their 
hearts, "We are strong." Around the fire 
a little tribe was encamped. They, too, 
had come from the mountains, and from 
lands beyond them, but it was in the 
mountains that the wolves first winded 
them; they picked up bones at first that 
the tribe had dropped, but they were closer 
now and on all sides. It was Loz who had 
lit the fire. He had killed a small furry 
beast, hurling his stone axe at it, and had 
gathered a quantity of reddish brown stones, 
and had laid them in a long row, and 
placed bits of the small beast all along it; 
then he lit a fire on each side, and the stones 
heated, and the bits began to cook. It 
was at this time that the tribe noticed that 
the wolves who had followed them so far 
were no longer content with the scraps of 
deserted encampments. A line of yellow 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

eyes surrounded them, and when it moved 
it was to come nearer. So the men of the 
tribe hastily tore up brushwood, and felled 
a small tree with their flint axes, and 
heaped it all over the fire that Loz had 
made, and for a while the great heap hid 
the flame, and the wolves came trotting in 
and sat down again on their haunches much 
closer than before; and the fierce and 
valiant dogs that belonged to the tribe 
believed that their end was about to come 
while fighting, as they had long since 
prophesied it would. Then the flame caught 
the lofty stack of brushwood, and rushed 
out of it, and ran up the side of it, and 
stood up haughtily far over the top, and 
the wolves seeing this terrible ally of Man 
revelling there in his strength, and knowing 
nothing of his frequent treachery to his 
masters, went slowly away as though they 
had other purposes. And for the rest of 
that night the dogs of the encampment 
cried out to them and besought them to 
come back. But the tribe lay down all 
round the fire under thick furs and slept. 
And a great wind arose and blew into the 
roaring heart of the fire till it was red no 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

longer, but all pallid with heat. With the 
dawn the tribe awoke. 

Loz might have known that after such 
a mighty conflagration nothing could re- 
main of his small furry beast, but there 
was hunger in him and little reason as he 
searched among the ashes. What he found 
there amazed him beyond measure; there 
was no meat, there was not even his row 
of reddish brown stones, but something 
longer than a man's leg and narrower than 
his hand, was lying there like a great flat- 
tened snake. When Loz looked at its thin 
edges and saw that it ran to a point, he 
picked up stones to chip it and make it 
sharp. It was the instinct of Loz to sharpen 
things. When he found that it could not 
be chipped his wonderment increased. It 
was many hours before he discovered that 
he could sharpen the edges by rubbing 
them with a stone; but at last the point 
was sharp, and all one side of it except near 
the end, where Loz held it in his hand. 
And Loz Ufted it and brandished it, and 
the Stone Age was over. That afternoon 
in the little encampment, just as the tribe 
moved on, the Stone Age passed away, 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

which, for perhaps thirty or forty thousand 
years, had slowly lifted Man from among 
the beasts and left him with his suprem- 
acy beyond all hope of reconquest. 

It was not for many days that any other 
man tried to make for himself an iron 
sword by cooking the same kind of small 
furry beast that Loz had tried to cook. 
It was not for many years that any thought 
to lay the meat along stones as Loz had 
done; and when they did, being no longer 
on the plains of Thold, they used flints or 
chalk. It was not for many generations 
that another piece of iron ore was melted 
and the secret slowly guessed. Neverthe- 
less one of Earth's many veils was torn 
aside by Loz to give us ultimately the 
steel sword and the plough, machinery and 
factories; let us not blame Loz if we think 
that he did wrong, for he did all in ignor- 
ance. The tribe moved on until it came 
to water, and there it settled down under a 
hill, and they built their huts there. Very 
soon they had to fight with another tribe, 
a tribe that was stronger than them; but 
the sword of Loz was terrible and his tribe 
slew their foes. You might make one 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

blow at Loz, but then would come one 
thrust from that iron sword, and there was 
no way of surviving it. No one could 
fight with Loz. And he became the ruler 
of the tribe in the place of Iz, who hitherto 
had ruled it with his sharp axe, as his 
father had before him. 

Now Loz begat Lo, and in his old age 
gave his sword to him, and Lo ruled the 
tribe with it. And Lo called the name of 
the sword Death, because it was so swift 
and terrible. 

And Iz begat Ird, who was of no account. 
And Ird hated Lo because he was of no 
account by reason of the iron sword of Lo. 

One night Ird stole down to the hut of 
Lo, carrying his sharp axe, and he went 
very softly, but Lo's dog, Warner, heard 
him coming, and he growled softly by his 
master's door. When Ird came to the 
hut he heard Lo talking gently to his 
sword. And Lo was saying, "Lie still, 
Death. Rest, rest, old sword," and then, 
"What, again. Death? Be still. Be still." 

And then again: "What, art thou hun- 
gry. Death? Or thirsty, poor old sword? 
Soon, Death, soon. Be still only a little.' 

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5> 



A Dreamer's Tales 

But Ird fled, for he did not like the 
gentle tone of Lo as he spoke to his sword. 

And Lo begat Lod. And when Lo died 
Lod took the iron sword and ruled the tribe. 

And Ird begat Ith, who was of no account, 
like his father. 

Now when Lod had smitten a man 
or killed a terrible beast, Ith would go 
away for a while into the forest rather 
than hear the praises that would be given 
to Lod. 

And once, as Ith sat in the forest waiting 
for the day to pass, he suddenly thought he 
saw a tree trunk looking at him as with 
a face. And Ith was afraid, for trees should 
not look at men. But soon Ith saw that 
it was only a tree and not a man, though 
it was like a man. Ith used to speak to 
this tree, and tell it about Lod, for he 
dared not speak to any one else about him. 
And Ith found comfort in talking about 
Lod. 

One day Ith went with his stone axe 
into the forest, and stayed there many days. 

He came back by night, and the next 
morning when the tribe awoke they saw 
something that was like a man and yet 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

was not a man. And it sat on the hill 
with its elbows pointing outwards and 
was quite still. And Ith was crouching 
before it, and hurriedly placing before it 
fruits and flesh, and then leaping away 
from it and looking frightened. Presently 
all the tribe came out to see, but dared 
not come quite close because of the fear 
that they saw on the face of Ith. And 
Ith went to his hut, and came back 
again with a hunting spear-head and 
valuable small stone knives, and 
reached out and laid them before the 
thing that was like a man, and then 
sprang away from it. 

And some of the tribe questioned Ith 
about the still thing that was like a man, 
and Ith said, "This is Ged." They then 
asked, "Who is Ged?" and Ith said, "Ged 
sends the crops and the rain; and the sun 
and the moon are Ged's." 

Then the tribe went back to their huts, 
but later in the day some came again, and 
they said to Ith, "Ged is only as we are, 
having hands and feet." And Ith pointed 
to the right hand of Ged, which was not 
as his left, but was shaped like the paw of 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

a beast, and Ith said, "By this ye may 
know that he is not as any man." 

Then they said, "He is indeed Ged." 
But Lod said, "He speaketh not, nor 
doth he eat," and Ith answered, "The 
thunder is his voice and the famine is his 
eating." 

After this the tribe copied Ith, and 
brought little gifts of meat to Ged; and 
Ith cooked them before him that Ged 
might smell the cooking. 

One day a great thunderstorm came 
trampling up from the distance and raged 
among the hills, and the tribe all hid away 
from it in their huts. And Ith appeared 
among the huts looking unafraid. And 
Ith said Uttle, but the tribe thought that 
he had expected the terrible storm because 
the meat that they had laid before Ged 
had been tough meat, and not the best 
parts of the beasts they slew. 

And Ged grew to have more honour 
among the tribe than Lod. And Lod was 
vexed. 

One night Lod arose when all were 
asleep, and quieted his dog, and took his 
iron sword and went away to the hill. 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

And he came on Ged in the starhght, 
sitting still, with his elbows pointing out- 
wards, and his beast's paw, and the mark 
of the fire on the ground where his food 
had been cooked. 

And Lod stood there for a while in great 
fear, trying to keep to his purpose. Sud- 
denly he stepped up close to Ged and lifted 
his iron sword, and Ged neither hit nor 
shrank. Then the thought came into Lod's 
mind, "Ged does not hit. What will Ged 
do instead?" 

And Lod lowered his sword and struck 
not, and his imagination began to work 
on that, "What will Ged do instead?" 

And the more Lod thought, the worse 
was his fear of Ged. 

And Lod ran away and left him. 

Lod still ruled the tribe in battle or in 
the hunt, but the chiefest spoils of battle 
were given to Ged, and the beasts that 
they slew were Ged's; and all questions 
that concerned war or peace, and questions 
of law and disputes, were always brought 
to him, and Ith gave the answers after 
speaking to Ged by night. 

At last Ith said, the day after an eclipse, 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

that the gifts which they brought to Ged 
were not enough, that some far greater 
sacrifice was needed, that Ged was very 
angry even now, and not to be appeased 
by any ordinary sacrifice. 

And Ith said that to save the tribe from 
the anger of Ged he would speak to Ged 
that night, and ask him what new sacrifice 
he needed. 

Deep in his heart Lod shuddered, for 
his instinct told him that Ged wanted 
Lod's only son, who should hold the iron 
sword when Lod was gone. 

No one would dare touch Lod because 
of the iron sword, but his instinct said 
in his slow mind again and again, "Ged 
loves Ith. Ith has said so. Ith hates the 
sword-holders." 

"Ith hates the sword-holders. Ged loves 
Ith." 

Evening fell and the night came when 
Ith should speak with Ged, and Lod be- 
came ever surer of the doom of his race. 

He lay down but could not sleep. 

Midnight had barely come when Lod 
arose and went with his iron sword again 
to the hill. 

103 



A Dreamer's Tales 

And there sat Ged. ' Had Ith been to 
him yet? Ith whom Ged loved, who hated 
the sword-holders. 

And Lod looked long at the old sword 
of iron that had come to his grandfather 
on the plains of Thold. 

Good-bye, old sword! And Lod laid it 
on the knees of Ged, then went away. 

And when Ith came, a Httle before dawn, 
the sacrifice was found acceptable unto 
Ged. 



104 



The Idle City 




here was once a city which 
was an idle city, wherein men 
told vain tales. 

And it was that city's cus- 
tom to tax all men that would 
enter in, with the toll of some idle story in 
the gate. 

So all men paid to the watchers in the 
gate the toll of an idle story, and passed 
into the city unhindered and unhurt. And 
in a certain hour of the night when the 
king of that city arose and went pacing 
swiftly up and down the chamber of his 
sleeping, and called upon the name of the 
dead queen, then would the watchers fasten 
up the gate and go into that chamber to 
the king, and, sitting on the floor, would 
tell him all the tales that they had gathered. 

105 



A Dreamefs Tales 

And listening to them some calmer mood 
would come upon the king, and Hstening 
still he would lie down again and at last 
fall asleep, and all the watchers silently 
would arise and steal away from the 
chamber. 

A while ago wandering, I came to the 
gate of that city. And even as I came 
a man stood up to pay his toll to the 
watchers. They were seated cross-legged 
on the ground between him and the gate, 
and each one held a spear. Near him two 
other travellers sat on the warm sand wait- 
ing. And the man said: 

"Now the city of Nombros forsook the 
worship of the gods and turned towards 
God. So the gods threw their cloaks over 
their faces and strode away from the city, 
and going into the haze among the hills 
passed through the trunks of the olive 
groves into the sunset. But when they had 
already left the earth, they turned and 
looked through the gleaming folds of the 
twilight for the last time at their city; and 
they looked half in anger and half in regret, 
then turned and went away for ever. But 
they sent back a Death, who bore a scythe, 

106 



A Dreamer's Tales 

saying to it: "Slay half in the city that for- 
sook us, but half of them spare alive that 
they may yet remember their old forsaken 
gods." 

But God sent a destroying angel to show 
that He was God, saying unto him: "Go 
down and show the strength of mine arm 
unto that city and slay half of the dwellers 
therein, yet spare a half of them that they 
may know that I am God." 

And at once the destroying angel put 
his hand to his sword, and the sword came 
out of the scabbard with a deep breath, 
like to the breath that a broad woodman 
takes before his first blow at some giant 
oak. Thereat the angel pointed his arms 
downwards, and bending his head between 
them, fell forward from Heaven's edge, 
and the spring of his ankles shot him 
downwards with his wings furled behind 
him. So he went slanting earthward through 
the evening with his sword stretched out 
before him, and he was like a javelin that 
some hunter hath hurled that returneth 
again to the earth: but just before he 
touched it he lifted his head and spread 
his wings with the under feathers forward, 

107 



A Dreamer's Tales 

and alighted by the bank of the broad 
Flavro that divides the city of Nombros. 
And down the bank of the Flavro he 
fluttered low, Uke to a hawk over a new-cut 
cornfield when the Uttle creatures of the 
corn are shelterless, and at the same time 
down the other bank the Death from the 
gods went mowing. 

At once they saw each other, and the 
angel glared at the Death, and the Death 
leered back at him, and the flames in the 
eyes of the angel illumined with a red glare 
the mist that lay in the hollows of the 
sockets of the Death. Suddenly they fell 
on one another, sword to scythe. And 
the angel captured the temples of the gods, 
and set up over them the sign of God, and 
the Death captured the temples of God, 
and led into them the ceremonies and sac- 
rifices of the gods; and all the while the 
centuries slipped quietly by going down the 
Flavro seawards. 

And now some worship God in the temple 
of the gods, and others worship the gods 
in the temple of God, and still the angel 
hath not returned again to the rejoicing 
choirs, and still the Death hath not gone 

108 




THE SILENCE OF GED 



A Dreamer's Tales 

back to die with the dead gods; but all 
through Nombros they fight up and down, 
and still on each side of the Flavro the city 
lives. 

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter 
in. 

Then another traveller rose up, and said: 

"Solemnly between Huhenwazi and Nit- 
crana the huge grey clouds came floating. 
And those great mountains, heavenly Huhen- 
wazi, and Nitcrana, the king of peaks, 
greeted them, caUing them brothers. And 
the clouds were glad of their greeting for 
they meet with companions seldom in the 
lonely heights of the sky. 

"But the vapours of evening said unto 
the earth-mist, 'What are those shapes 
that dare to move above us and to go 
where Nitcrana is and Huhenwazi? ' 

"And the earth-mist said in answer unto 
the vapours of evening, 'It is only an 
earth-mist that has become mad and has 
left the warm and comfortable earth, and 
has in his madness thought that his place 
is with Huhenwazi and Nitcrana.' 

" 'Once,' said the vapours of evening, 
* there were clouds, but this was many and 

109 



A Dreamer's Tales 

many a day ago, as our forefathers have 
said. Perhaps the mad one thinks he is the 
clouds.' 

"Then spake the earth-worms from the 
warm deeps of the mud, saying '0, earth- 
mist, thou art indeed the clouds, and there 
are no clouds but thou. And as for Huhen- 
wazi and Nitcrana, I cannot see them, and 
therefore they are not high, and there are 
no mountains in the world but those that 
I cast up every morning out of the deeps 
of the mud.' 

"And the earth-mist and the vapours 
of evening were glad at the voice of the 
earth-worms, and looking earthward be- 
lieved what they had said. 

"And indeed it is better to be as the 
earth-mist, and to keep close to the warm 
mud at night, and to hear the earth-worm's 
comfortable speech, and not to be a wand- 
erer in the cheerless heights, but to leave 
the mountains alone with their desolate 
snow, to draw what comfort they can 
from their vast aspect over all the cities 
of men, and from the whispers that 
they hear £tt evening of unknown distant 
Gods." 

110 



A Dreamer's Tales 

And the watchers in the gate said, 
"Enter in." 

Then a man stood up who came out of the 
west, and told a western tale. He said : 

"There is a road in Rome that runs 
through an ancient temple that once the 
gods had loved; it runs along the top of a 
great wall, and the floor of the temple lies 
far down beneath it, of marble, pink and 
white. 

"Upon the temple floor I counted to the 
number of thirteen hungry cats. 

" 'Sometimes,' they said among them- 
selves, 'It was the gods that lived here, 
sometimes it was men, and now it's cats. 
So let us enjoy the sun on the hot marble 
before another people comes. 

"For it was at that hour of a warm after- 
noon when my fancy is able to hear the 
silent voices. 

"And the fearful leanness of all those 
thirteen cats moved me to go into a neigh- 
bouring fish shop, and there to buy a quan- 
tity of fishes. Then I returned and threw 
them all over the railing at the top of the 
great wall, and they fell for thirty feet, 
and hit the sacred marble with a smack. 

Ill 



A Dreamer's Tales 

"Now, in any other town but Rome, or 
in the minds of any other cats, the sight 
of fishes falling out of heaven had surely 
excited wonder. They rose slowly, and all 
stretched themselves, then they came leis- 
urely towards the fishes. 'It is only a 
miracle,' they said in their hearts." 

And the watchers in the gate said, 
"Enter in." 

Proudly and slowly, as they spoke, drew 
up to them a camel, whose rider sought for 
entrance to the city. His face shone with 
the sunset by which for long he had steered 
for the city's gate. Of him they demanded 
toll. Whereat he spoke to his camel, and 
the camel roared and kneeled, and the man 
descended from him. And the man un- 
wrapped from many silks a box of divers 
metals wrought by the Japanese, and on 
the Hd of it were figures of men who gazed 
from some shore at an isle of the Inland 
Sea. This he showed to the watchers, and 
when they had seen it, said, "It has seemed 
to me that these speak to each other thus: 

"Behold now Oojni, the dear one of the 
sea, the little mother sea that hath no 
storms. She goeth out from Oojni singing 

112 






A Dreamer's Tales 

a song, and she returneth singing over her 
sands. Little is Oojni in the lap of the 
sea, and scarce to be perceived by wonder- 
ing ships. White sails have never wafted 
her legends afar, they are told not by 
bearded wanderers of the sea. Her fireside 
tales are known not to the North, the 
dragons of China have not heard of them, 
nor those that ride on elephants through Ind. 

"Men tell the tales and the smoke ariseth 
upwards; the smoke departeth and the 
tales are told. 

"Oojni is not a name among the nations, 
she is not known of where the merchants 
meet, she is not spoken of by alien lips. 

"Indeed, but Oojni is little among the 
isles, yet is she loved by those that know 
her coasts and her inland places hidden 
from the sea. 

"Without glory, without fame, and with- 
out wealth, Oojni is greatly loved by a 
little people, and by a few; yet not by few, 
for all her dead still love her, and oft by 
night come whispering through her woods. 
Who could forget Oojni even among the 
dead? 

"For here in Oojni, wot you, are homes 

113 



A Dreamer's Tales 

of men, and gardens, and golden temples 
of the gods, and sacred places inshore from 
the sea, and many murmurous woods. And 
there is a path that winds over the hills to 
go into mysterious holy lands where dance 
by night the spirits of the woods, or sing 
unseen in the sunlight; and no one goes 
into these holy lands, for who that love 
Oojni would rob her of her mysteries, and 
the curious aliens come not. Indeed, but 
we love Oojni though she is so little; she 
is the little mother of our race, and the 
kindly nurse of all seafaring birds. 

"And behold, even now caressing her, 
the gentle fingers of the mother sea, whose 
dreams are afar with that old wanderer 
Ocean. 

"And yet let us forget not Fuzi-Yama, 
for he stands manifest over clouds and 
sea, misty below, and vague and indistinct, 
but clear above for all the isles to watch. 
The ships make all their journeys in his 
sight, the nights and the days go by him 
like a wind, the summers and winters 
under him flicker and fade, the lives of 
men pass quietly here and hence, and 
Fuzi-Yama watches there — and knows." 

114 



A Dreamer's Tales 

And the watchers in the gate said 
"Enter in." 

And I, too, would have told them a tale, 
very wonderful and very true; one that 
I had told in many cities, which as yet 
had no believers. But now the sun had 
set, and the brief twilight gone, and ghostly 
silences were rising from far and darken- 
ing hills. A stillness hung over that city's 
gate. And the great silence of the solemn 
night was more acceptable to the watchers 
in the gate than any sound of man. There- 
fore they beckoned to us, and motioned 
with their hands that we should pass un- 
taxed into the city. And softly we went 
up over the sand, and between the high 
rock pillars of the gate, and a deep stillness 
settled among the watchers, and the stars 
over them twinkled undisturbed. 

For how short a while man speaks, and 
withal how vainly. And for how long he 
is silent. Only the other day I met a 
king in Thebes, who had been silent already 
for four thousand years. 



115 




The Hashish Man 



was at dinner in London the 
other day. The ladies had 
gone upstairs, and no one sat 
on my right; on my left there 
was a man I did not know, 
but he knew my name somehow apparently, 
for he turned to me after a while, and said, 
"I read a story of yours about Bethmoora 
in a review." 

Of course I remembered the tale. It 
was about a beautiful Oriental city that 
was suddenly deserted in a day — nobody 
quite knew why. I said, "Oh, yes," and 
slowly searched in my mind for some more 
fitting acknowledgement of the compliment 
that his memory had paid me. 

I was greatly astonished when he said, 
"You were wrong about the gnousar sick- 
ness; it was not that at all." 

116 



A Dreamer's Tales 

I said, "Why! Have you been there?" 
And he said, "Yes; I do it with has- 
hish. I know Bethmoora well." And he 
took out of his pocket a small box full of 
some black stuff that looked like tar, but 
had a stranger smell. He warned me not 
to touch it with my finger, as the stain 
remained for days. "I got it from a 
gipsy," he said. "He had a lot of it, as 
it had killed his father." But I inter- 
rupted him, for I wanted to know for 
certain what it was that had made deso- 
late that beautiful city, Bethmoora, and 
why they fled from it swiftly in a day. 
"Was it because of the Desert's curse?" 
I asked. And he said, "Partly it was the 
fury of the Desert and partly the advice 
of the Emperor Thuba Mleen, for that 
fearful beast is in some way connected 
with the Desert on his mother's side." 
And he told me this strange story: "You 
remember the sailor with the black scar, 
who was there on the day that you des- 
cribed when the messengers came on mules 
to the gate of Bethmoora, and all the 
people fled. I met this man in a tavern, 
drinking nmi, and he told me all about 

117 



A Dreamer's Tales 

the flight from Bethmoora, but knew no 
more than you did what the message was, 
or who had sent it. However, he said he 
would see Bethmoora once more when- 
ever he touched again at an eastern port, 
even if he had to face the Devil. He often 
said that he would face the Devil to find 
out the mystery of that message that 
emptied Bethmoora in a day. And in the 
end he had to face Thuba Mleen, whose 
weak ferocity he had not imagined. For 
one day the sailor told me he had found a 
ship, and I met him no more after that in 
the tavern drinking rum. It was about 
that time that I got the hashish from the 
gipsy, who had a quantity that he did not 
want. It takes one Uterally out of oneself. 
It is hke wings. You swoop over distant 
countries and into other worlds. Once I 
found out the secret of the universe. I 
have forgotten what it was, but I know 
that the Creator does not take Creation 
seriously, for I remember that He sat in 
Space with all His work in front of Him 
and laughed. I have seen incredible things 
in fearful worlds. As it is your imagination 
that takes you there, so it is only by your 

118 



A Dreamer's Tales 

imagination that you can get back. Once 
out in aether I met a battered, prowhng 
spirit, that had belonged to a man whom 
drugs had killed a hundred years ago; and 
he led me to regions that I had never 
imagined; and we parted in anger beyond 
the Pleiades, and I could not imagine my 
way back. And I met a huge grey shape 
that was the Spirit of some great people, 
perhaps of a whole star, and I besought It 
to show me my way home, and It halted 
beside me like a sudden wind and pointed, 
and, speaking quite softly, asked me if I 
discerned a certain tiny light, and I saw 
a far star faintly, and then It said to me, 
'That is the Solar System,' and strode 
tremendously on. And somehow I imag- 
ined my way back, and only just in time, 
for my body was already stiffening in a 
chair in my room; and the fire had gone 
out and everything was cold, and I had to 
move each finger one by one, and there 
were pins and needles in them, and dread- 
ful pains in the nails, which began to thaw; 
and at last I could move one arm, and 
reached a bell, and for a long time no one 
came, because every one was in bed. But 

119 



A Dreamer's Tales 

at last a man appeared, and they got a 
doctor; and he said that it was hashish 
poisoning, but it would have been all 
right if I hadn' t met that battered, prowl- 
ing spirit. 

"I could tell you astounding things that 
I have seen, but you want to know who 
sent that message to Bethmoora. Well, it 
was Thuba Mleen. And this is how I 
know. I often went to the city after that 
day that you wrote of (I used to take hash- 
ish of an evening in my flat), and I always 
found it uninhabited. Sand had poured 
into it from the desert, and the streets were 
yellow and smooth, and through open, 
swinging doors the sand had drifted. 

"One evening I had put the guard in 
front of the fire, and settled into a chair 
and eaten my hashish, and the first thing 
that I saw when I came to Bethmoora was 
the sailor with the black scar, strolling 
down the street, and making footprints in 
the yellow sand. And now I knew that I 
should see what secret power it was that 
kept Bethmoora uninhabited. 

"I saw that there was anger in the 
Desert, for there were storm clouds heaving 

120 



A Dreamer's Tales 

along the skyline, and I heard a muttering 
amongst the sand. 

''The sailor strolled on down the street, 
looking into the empty houses as he went; 
sometimes he shouted and sometimes he 
sang, and sometimes he wrote his name 
on a marble wall. Then he sat down on a 
step and ate his dinner. After a while he 
grew tired of the city, and came back up 
the street. As he reached the gate of green 
copper three men on camels appeared. 

"I could do nothing. I was only a con- 
sciousness, invisible, wandering: my body 
was in Europe. The sailor fought well 
with his fists, but he was over-powered and 
bound with ropes, and led away through 
the Desert. 

"I followed for as long as I could stay, 
and found that they were going by the 
way of the Desert round the Hills of Hap 
towards Utnar V6hi, and then I knew 
that the camel men belonged to Thuba 
Mleen. 

"I work in an insurance office all day, 
and I hope you won't forget me if ever 
you want to insure — life, fire, or motor — 
but that's no part of my story. I was 

121 



A Dreamefs Tales 

desperately anxious to get back to my flat, 
though it is not good to take hashish two 
days running; but I wanted to see what 
they would do to the poor fellow, for I had 
heard bad rumours about Thuba Mleen. 
When at last I got away I had a letter to 
write; then I rang for my servant, and told 
him that I must not be disturbed, though I 
left my door unlocked in case of accidents. 
After that I made up a good fire, and sat 
down and partook of the pot of dreams. 
I was going to the palace of Thuba 
Mleen. 

"I was kept back longer than usual by 
noises in the street, but suddenly I was up 
above the town; the European countries 
rushed by beneath me, and there appeared 
the thin white palace spires of horrible 
Thuba Mleen. I found him presently at 
the end of a httle narrow room. A curtain 
of red leather hung behind him, on which 
all the names of God, written in Yannish, 
were worked with a golden thread. Three 
windows were small and high. The Emperor 
seemed no more than about twenty, and 
looked small and weak. No smiles came 
on his nasty yellow face, though he tittered 

122 




THUBA MLEEN 



A Dreamer's Tales 

continually. As I looked from his low 
forehead to his quivering under lip, I 
became aware that there was some horror 
about him, though I was not able to per- 
ceive what it was. And then I saw it — 
the man never blinked; and though later 
on I watched those eyes for a blink, it 
never happened once. 

"And then I followed the Emperor's 
rapt glance, and I saw the sailor lying on 
the floor, alive but hideously rent, and the 
royal torturers were at work all round him. 
They had torn long strips from him, but 
had not detached them, and they were 
torturing the ends of them far away from 
the sailor." The man that I met at dinner 
told me many things which I must omit. 
"The sailor was groaning softly, and every 
time he groaned Thuba Mleen tittered. I 
had no sense of smell, but I could hear and 
see, and I do not know which was the 
most revolting — the terrible condition of 
the sailor or the happy unblinking face of 
horrible Thuba Mleen. 

"I wanted to go away, but the time was 
not yet come, and I had to stay where I 
was. 

123 



A Dreamer's Tales 

"Suddenly the Emperor's face began 
to twitch violently and his under lip quiv- 
ered faster, and he whimpered with anger, 
and cried with a shrill voice, in Yannish, 
to the captain of his torturers that there 
was a spirit in the room. I feared not, 
for living men cannot lay hands on a spirit, 
but all the torturers were appalled at his 
anger, and stopped their work, for their 
hands trembled with fear. Then two men 
of the spear-guard slipped from the room, 
and each of them brought back presently 
a golden bowl, with knobs on it, full of 
hashish; and the bowls were large enough 
for heads to have floated in had they been 
filled with blood. And the two men fell 
to rapidly, each eating with two great 
spoons — there was enough in each spoon- 
ful to have given dreams to a hundred men. 
And there came upon them soon the hashish 
state, and their spirits hovered, preparing 
to go free, while I feared horribly, but ever 
and anon they fell back again to the bodies, 
recalled by some noise in the room. Still 
the men ate, but lazily now, and without 
ferocity. At last the great spoons dropped 
out of their hands, and their spirits rose and 

124 



A Dreamer's Tales 

left them. I could not flee. And the 
spirits were more horrible than the men, 
because they were young men, and not yet 
wholly moulded to fit their fearful souls. 
Still the sailor groaned softly, evoking httle 
titters from the Emperor Thuba Mleen. 
Then the two spirits rushed at me, and 
swept me thence as gusts of wind sweep 
butterflies, and away we went from that 
small, pale, heinous man. There was no 
escaping from these spirits' fierce insistence. 
The energy in my minute lump of the drug 
was overwhelmed by the huge spoonsful 
that these men had eaten with both hands. 
I was whirled over Arvle Woondery, and 
brought to the lands of Snith, and swept 
on still until I came to Kragua, and be- 
yond this to those bleak lands that are 
nearly unknown to fancy. And we came 
at last to those ivory hills that are named 
the Mountains of Madness, and I tried 
to struggle against the spirits of that fright- 
ful Emperor's men, for I heard on the 
other side of the ivory hills the pittering 
of those beasts that prey on the mad, as 
they prowled up and down. It was no fault 
of mine that my little lump of hashish 

125 



A Dreamer's Tales 

could not fight with their horrible spoons- 
ful. . . ." 

Some one was tugging at the hall-door 
bell. Presently a servant came and told 
our host that a policeman in the hall wished 
to speak to him at once. He apologised to 
us, and went outside, and we heard a man 
in heavy boots, who spoke in a low voice to 
him. My friend got up and walked over 
to the window, and opened it, and looked 
outside. "I should think it will be a fine 
night," he said. Then he jumped out. 
When we put our astonished heads out of 
the window to look for him, he was already 
out of sight. 



126 



Poor Old Bill 




n an antique haunt of sailors, 
a tavern of the sea, the hght of 
day was fading. For several 
evenings I had frequented 
this place, in the hope of hear- 
ing something from the sailors, as they sat 
over strange wines, about a rumor that had 
reached my ears of a certain fleet of galleons 
of old Spain still said to be afloat in the 
South Seas in some uncharted region. 

In this I was again to be disappointed. 
Talk was low and seldom, and I was about 
to leave, when a sailor, wearing ear-rings 
of pure gold, lifted up his head from his 
wine, and looking straight before him at 
the wall, told his tale loudly: 

(When later on a storm of rain arose 
and thundered on the tavern's leaded panes, 

127 



A Dreamer's Tales 

he raised his voice without effort and 
spoke on still. The darker it got the clearer 
his wild eyes shone.) 

"A ship with sails of the olden time was 
nearing fantastic isles. We had never seen 
such isles. 

"We all hated the captain, and he hated 
us. He hated us all alike, there was no 
favouritism about him. And he never 
would talk a word with any of us, except 
sometimes in the evening when it was 
getting dark he would stop and look up 
and talk a bit to the men he had hanged at 
the yard-arm. 

"We were a mutinous crew. But Cap- 
tain was the only man that had pistols. 
He slept with one under his pillow and 
kept one close beside him. There was a 
nasty look about the isles. They were 
small and flat as though they had come 
up only recently from the sea, and they 
had no sand or rocks Uke honest isles, but 
green grass down to the water. And there 
were little cottages there whose looks we 
did not hke. Their thatches came almost 
down to the ground, and were strangely 
turned up at the corners, and under the 

128 




LITTLE COTTAGES . . . WHOSE LOOKS WE DID NOT LIKE 



A Dreamer's Tales 

low eaves were queer dark windows whose 
little leaded panes were too thick to see 
through. And no one, man or beast, was 
walking about, so that you could not know 
what kind of people lived there. But 
Captain knew. And he went ashore and 
into one of the cottages, and someone lit 
lights inside, and the little windows wore 
an evil look. 

" It was quite dark when he came aboard 
again, and he bade a cheery good-night to 
the men that swung from the yard-arm, 
and he eyed us in a way that frightened 
poor old Bill. 

"Next night we found that he had 
learned to curse, for he came on a lot of 
us asleep in our bunks, and among them 
poor old Bill, and he pointed at us with a 
finger, and made a curse that our souls 
should stay all night at the top of the 
masts. And suddenly there was the soul 
of poor old Bill sitting like a monkey at 
the top of the mast, and looking at the 
stars, and freezing through and through. 

"We got up a little mutiny after that, 
but Captain comes up and points with his 
finger again, and this time poor old Bill 

129 



A Dreamer's Tales 

and all the rest are swimming behind the 
ship through the cold green water, though 
their bodies remain on deck. 

"It was the cabin-boy who found out 
that Captain couldn't curse when he was 
drunk, though he could shoot as well at 
one time as another. 

"After that it was only a matter of 
waiting, and of losing two men when the 
time came. Some of us were murderous 
fellows, and wanted to kill Captain, but 
poor old Bill was for finding a bit of an 
island, out of the track of ships, and leaving 
him there with his share of our year's pro- 
visions. And everybody listened to poor 
old Bill, and we decided to maroon Captain 
as soon as we caught him when he couldn't 
curse. 

"It was three whole days before Captain 
got drunk again, and poor old Bill and all 
had a dreadful time, for Captain invented 
new curses every day, and wherever he 
pointed his finger our souls had to go; and 
the fishes got to know us, and so did the 
stars, and none of them pitied us when we 
froze on the masts or were hurried through 
forests of seaweed and lost our way — ^both 

130 



A Dreamer's Tales 

stars and fishes went about their businesses 
with cold, unastonished eyes. Once when 
the sun had set and it was twiUght, and the 
moon was showing clearer and clearer in 
the sky, and we stopped our work for a 
moment because Captain seemed to be 
looking away from us at the colours in 
the sky, he suddenly turned and sent our 
souls to the Moon. And it was colder 
there than ice at night; and there were 
horrible mountains making shadows; and 
it was all as silent as miles of tombs; and 
Earth was shining up in the sky as big as 
the blade of a scythe, and we all got home- 
sick for it, but could not speak nor cry. 
It was quite dark when we got back, and 
we were very respectful to Captain all the 
next day, but he cursed several of us again 
very soon. What we all feared most was 
that he would curse our souls to Hell, and 
none of us mentioned Hell above a whisper 
for fear that it should remind him. But 
on the third evening the cabin-boy came and 
told us that Captain was drunk. And we 
all went to his cabin, and we found him 
lying there across his bunk, and he shot 
as he had never shot before; but he had 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

no more then the two pistols, and he would 
only have killed two men if he hadn't 
caught Joe over the head with the end of 
one of his pistols. And then we tied him 
up. And poor old Bill put the rum be- 
tween Captain's teeth, and kept him drunk 
for two days, so that he could not curse, 
till we found a convenient rock. And 
before sunset of the second day we found 
a nice bare island for Captain, out of the 
track of ships, about a hundred yards long 
and about eighty wide; and we rowed him 
along to it in a little boat, and gave him 
provisions for a year, the same as we had 
ourselves, because poor old Bill wanted to 
be fair. And we left him sitting comfortable 
with his back to a rock singing a sailor's 
song. 

"When we could no longer hear Captain 
singing we all grew very cheerful and made 
a banquet out of our year's provisions, as 
we all hoped to be home again in under 
three weeks. We had three great banquets 
every day for a week — every man had more 
than he could eat, and what was left over 
we threw on the floor like gentlemen. And 
then one day, as we saw San Huelgedos, 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

and wanted to sail in to spend our money, the 
wind changed round from behind us and 
beat us out to sea. There was no tacking 
against it, and no getting into the harbor, 
though other ships sailed by us and an- 
chored there. Sometimes a dead calm 
would fall on us, while fishing boats all 
around us flew before half a gale, and 
sometimes the wind would beat us out to 
sea when nothing else was moving. All 
day we tried, and at night we laid to and 
tried again next day. And all the sailors 
of the other ships were spending their 
money in San Huelgedos and we could not 
come nigh it. Then we spoke horrible 
things against the wind and against San 
Huelgedos, and sailed away. 

"It was just the same at Norenna. 

"We kept close together now and talked 
in low voices. Suddenly poor old Bill 
grew frightened. As we went all along the 
Siractic coast-line, we tried again and 
again, and the wind was waiting for us in 
every harbour and sent us out to sea. 
Even the little islands would not have us. 
And then we knew that there was no land- 
ing yet for poor old Bill, and every one 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

upbraided his kind heart that had made 
them maroon Captain on a rock, so as not 
to have his blood upon their heads. There 
was nothing to do but to drift about the 
seas. There were no banquets now, because 
we feared that Captain might live his year 
and keep us out to sea. 

"At first we used to hail all passing ships, 
and used to try to board them in the boats; 
but there was no rowing against Captain's 
curse, and we had to give that up. So we 
played cards for a year in Captain's cabin, 
night and day, storm and fine, and every 
one promised to pay poor old Bill when we 
got ashore. 

"It was horrible to us to think what a 
frugal man Captain really was, he that 
used to get drunk every other day when- 
ever he was at sea, and here he was still 
alive, and sober too, for his curse still kept 
us out of every port, and our provisions 
were gone. 

"Well, it came to drawing lots, and Jimi 
was the unlucky one. Jim only kept us 
about three days, and then we drew lots 
again, and this time it was the nigger. The 
nigger didn't keep us any longer, and we 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

drew again, and this time it was Charlie, 
and still Captain was alive. 

"As we got fewer one of us kept us longer. 
Longer and longer a mate used to last us, 
and we all wondered how ever Captain did 
it. It was five weeks over the year when, 
we drew Mike, and he kept us for a week, 
and Captain was still alive. We wondered 
he didn't get tired of the same old curse; 
but we supposed things looked different 
when one is alone on an island. 

"When there was only Jakes and poor 
old Bill and the cabin-boy and Dick, we 
didn't draw any longer. We said that the 
cabin-boy had had all the luck, and he 
mustn't expect any more. Then poor old 
Bill was alone with Jakes and Dick, and 
Captain was still alive. When there was 
no more boy, and the Captain still alive, 
Dick, who was a huge strong man Uke 
poor old Bill, said that it was Jakes' turn, 
and he was very lucky to have lived as 
long as he had. But poor old Bill talked 
it all over with Jakes, and they thought it 
better that Dick should take his turn. 

"Then there was Jakes and poor old 
Bill; and Captain would not die. 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

"And these two used to watch one an- 
other night and day, when Dick was gone 
and no one else was left to them. And 
at last poor old Bill fell down in a faint and 
lay there for an hour. Then Jakes came 
up to him slowly with his knife, and makes 
a stab at poor old Bill as he lies there on 
the deck. And poor old Bill caught hold 
of him by the wrist, and put his knife into 
him twice to make quite sure, although it 
spoiled the best part of the meat. Then 
poor old Bill was all alone at sea. 

"And the very next week, before the 
food gave out, Captain must have died on 
his bit of an island; for poor old Bill heard 
Captain's soul going cursing over the sea, 
and the day after that the ship was cast on 
a rocky coast. 

"And Captain's been dead now for over 
a hundred years, and poor old Bill is safe 
ashore again. But it looks as if Captain 
hadn't done with him yet, for poor old Bill 
doesn't ever get any older, and somehow or 
other he doesn't seem to die. Poor old Bill!" 

When this was over the man's fascina- 
tion suddenly snapped, and we all jumped 
up and left him. 

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A Dreamefs Tales 

It was not only his revolting story, but 
it was the fearful look in the eyes of the 
man who told it, and the terrible ease with 
which his voice surpassed the roar of the 
rain, that decided me never again to enter 
that haunt of sailors — the tavern of the 
sea. 



137 




The Beggars 

was walking down Piccadilly 
not long ago, thinking of 
nursery rhymes and regretting 
I old romance. 

As I saw the shopkeepers 
walk by in their black frock-coats and their 
black hats, I thought of the old line in 
nursery annals, "The merchants of London, 
they wear scarlet." 

The streets were all so unromantic, dreary. 
Nothing could be done for them, I thought 
— nothing. And then my thoughts were 
interrupted by barking dogs. Every dog 
in the street seemed to be barking — every 
kind of dog, not only the little ones but the 
big ones too. They were all facing East 
towards the way I was coming by. Then 
I turned round to look and had this vision, 
in Piccadilly, on the opposite side to the 
houses just after you pass the cab-rank. 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

Tall bent men were coming down the 
street arrayed in mrvellous cloaks. All 
were sallow of skin and swarthy of hair, 
and the most of them wore strange beards. 
They v/ere coming slowly, and they walked 
with staves, and their hands were out for 
alms. 

All the beggars had come to town. 

I would have given them a gold doubloon 
engraven with the towers of Castille, but 
I had no such coin. They did not seem 
the people to whom it were fitting to offer 
the same coin as one tendered for the use 
of a taxicab (0 marvellous, ill-made word, 
surely the pass-word somewhere of some 
evil order). Some of them wore purple 
cloaks with wide green borders, and the 
border of green was a narrow strip with 
some, and some wore cloaks of old and 
faded red, and some wore violet cloaks, and 
none wore black. And they begged grace- 
fully, as gods might beg for souls. 

I stood by a lamp-post, and they came 
up to it, and one addressed it, calling the 
lamp-post brother, and said, "0 lamp-post, 
our brother of the dark, are there many 
wrecks by thee in the tides of night? Sleep 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

not, brother, sleep not. There were many 
wrecks an it were not for thee." 

It was strange : I had not thought of the 
majesty of the street lamp and his long 
watching over drifting men. But he was 
not beneath the notice of these cloaked 
strangers. 

And then one murmured to the street: 
"Art thou weary, street? Yet a little longer 
they shall go up and down, and keep thee 
clad with tar and wooden bricks. Be 
patient, street. In a while the earthquake 
cometh." 

"Who are you?" people said. "And 
where do you come from?" 

"Who may tell what we are," they 
answered, "or whence we come?" 

And one turned towards the smoke- 
stained houses, saying, "Blessed be the 
houses, because men dream therein." 

Then I perceived, what I had never 
thought, that all these staring houses were 
not alike, but different one from another, 
because they held different dreams. 

And another turned to a tree that stood 
by the Green Park railings, saying, "Take 
comfort, tree, for the fields shall come again. 

140 



>> 



A Dreamer's Tales 

And all the while the ugly smoke went 
upwards, the smoke that has stifled Ro- 
mance and blackened the birds. This, I 
thought, they can neither praise nor bless. 
And when they saw it they raised their 
hands towards it, towards the thousand 
chimneys, saying, "Behold the smoke. The 
old coal-forests that have lain so long in 
the dark, and so long still, are dancing now 
and going back to the sun. Forget not 
Earth, our brother, and we wish thee 
joy of the sun." 

It had rained, and a cheerless stream 
dropped down a dirty gutter. It had come 
from heaps of refuse, foul and forgotten; 
it had gathered upon its way things that 
were derelict, and went to sombre drains 
unknown to man or the sun. It was this 
sullen stream as much as all other causes 
that had made me say in my heart that 
the town was vile, that Beauty was dead in 
it, and Romance fled. 

Even this thing they blessed. And one 
that wore a purple cloak with broad green 
border, said, "Brother, be hopeful yet, for 
thou shalt surely come at last to the delect- 
able Sea, and meet the heaving, huge, and 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

travelled ships, and rejoice by isles that 
know the golden sun." Even thus they 
blessed the gutter, and I felt no whim to 
mock. 

And the people that w^ent by, in their 
black unseemly coats and their misshapen, 
monstrous, shiny hats, the beggars also 
blessed. And one of them said to one of 
these dark citizens: "0 twin of Night him- 
self, with thy specks of white at wrists and 
neck like to Night's scattered stars. How 
fearfully thou dost veil with black thy hid, 
unguessed desires. They are deep thoughts 
in thee that they will not froUc with colour, 
that they say 'No' to purple, and to lovely 
green 'Begone.' Thou hast wild fancies 
that they must needs be tamed with black, 
and terrible imaginings that they must be 
hidden thus. Has thy soul dreams of the 
angels, and of the walls of faory that thou 
has guarded it so utterly, lest it dazzle 
astonished eyes? Even so God hid the 
diamond deep down in miles of clay. 

The wonder of thee is not marred by 
mirth. 

Behold thou art very secret. 

Be wonderful. Be full of mystery." 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

Silently the man in the black frock-coat 
passed on. And I came to understand 
when the purple beggar had spoken, that 
the dark citizen had trafficked perhaps with 
Ind, that in his heart were strange and 
dumb ambitions: that his dumbness was 
founded by solemn rite on the roots of 
ancient tradition: that it might be over- 
come one day by a cheer in the street or 
by some one singing a song, and that when 
this shopman spoke there might come clefts 
in the world and people peering over at the 
abyss. 

Then turning towards Green Park, where 
as yet Spring was not, the beggars stretched 
out their hands, and looking at the frozen 
grass and the yet unbudding trees they, 
chanting all together, prophesied daffodils. 

A motor omnibus came down the street, 
nearly running over some of the dogs 
that were barking ferociously still. It was 
sounding its horn noisily. 

And the vision went then. 



143 



Carcassonne 



In a letter from a friend whom I have never seen, 
one of those that read my hooksj this line was 
quoted — "But he, he never came to Carcas- 
sonne.^' I do not know the origin of the line, 
hut I made this tale about it. 




hen Camorak reigned at Am, 
and the world was fairer, he 
gave a festival to all the 
Weald to commemorate the 
splendour of his youth. 
They say that his house at Arn was 
huge and high, and its ceiHng painted blue; 
and when evening fell men would climb up 
by ladders and light the scores of candles 
hanging from slender chains. And they 
say, too, that sometimes a cloud would 
come, and pour in through the top of one 
of the oriel windows, and it would come 

144 



A Dreamer's Tales 

over the edge of the stonework as the sea- 
mist comes over a sheer chff's shaven lip 
where an old wind has blown for ever and 
ever (he has swept away thousands of 
leaves and thousands of centuries, they are 
all one to him, he owes no allegiance to 
Time.) And the cloud would re-shape itseK 
in the hall's lofty vault and drift on through 
it slowly, and out to the sky again through 
another window. And from its shape the 
knights in Camorak's hall would prohesy 
the battles and sieges of the next season of 
war. They say of the hall of Camorak 
at Arn that there hath been none like it 
in any land, and foretell that there will be 
never. 

Hither had come in the folk of the Weald 
from sheepfold and from forest, revolving 
slow thoughts of food, and shelter, and 
love, and they sat down wondering in that 
famous hall; and therein also were seated 
the men of Am, the town that clustered 
round the King's high house, and was all 
roofed with the red, maternal earth. 

If old songs may be trusted, it was a 
marvellous hall. 

Many who sat there could only have 

145 



A Dreamer's Tales 

seen it distantly before, a clear shape in 
the landscape, but smaller than a hill. 
Now they beheld along the wall the weapons 
of Camorak's men, of which already the 
lute-players made songs, and tal s were 
told at evening in the byres. There they 
descried the shield of Camorak that had 
gone to and fro across so many battles, and 
the sharp but dinted edges of his sword; 
there were the weapons of Gadriol the 
Leal, and Norn, and Athoric of the Sleety 
Sword, Heriel the Wild, Yarold, and Thanga 
of Esk, their arms hung evenly all round 
the hall, low where a man could reach them; 
and in the place of honour in the midst, 
between the arms of Camorak and of 
Gadriol the Leal, hung the harp of Arleon. 
And of all the weapons hanging on those 
walls none were more calamitous to Cam- 
orak's foes than was the harp of Arleon. 
For to a man that goes up against a strong 
place on foot, pleasant indeed is the twang 
and jolt of some fearful engine of war that 
his fellow-warriors are working behind him, 
from w^hich huge rocks go sighing over his 
head and plunge among his foes; and 
pleasant to a warrior in the wavering fight 

146 



A Dreamer's Tales 

are the swift commands of his King, and a 
joy to him are his comrades' distant cheers 
exulting suddenly at a turn of the war. 
All this and more was the harp to Cam- 
orak's men; for not only would it cheer his 
warriors on, but many a time would Arleon 
of the Harp strike wild amazement into 
opposing hosts by some rapturous prophecy 
suddenly shouted out while his hand swept 
over the roaring strings. Moreover, no 
war was ever declared till Camorak and his 
men had listened long to the harp, and were 
elate with the music and mad against peace. 
Once Arleon, for the sake of a rhyme, had 
made war upon Estabonn; and an evil king 
was overthrown, and honour and glory 
won; from such queer motives does good 
sometimes accrue. 

Above the shields and the harps all 
round the hall were the painted figures of 
heroes of fabulous famous songs. Too 
trivial, because too easily surpassed by 
Camorak's men, seemed all the victories 
that the earth had known; neither was any 
trophy displayed of Camorak's seventy 
battles, for these were as nothing to his 
warriors or him compared with those 

147 



A Dreamer's Tales 

things that their youth had dreamed 
and which they mightily purposed yet 
to do. 

Above the painted pictures there was 
darkness, for evening was closing in, and 
the candles swinging on their slender chain 
were not yet lit in the roof; it was as though 
a piece of the night had been builded in to 
the edifice like a huge natural rock that 
juts into a house. And there sat all the 
warriors of Arn and the Weald-folk wonder- 
ing at them; and none were more than 
thirty, and all were skilled in war. And 
Camorack sat at the head of all, exulting 
in his youth. 

We must wrestle with Time for some 
seven decades, and he is a weak and puny 
antagonist in the first three bouts. 

Now there was present at this feast a 
diviner, one who knew the schemes of 
Fate, and he sat among the people of the 
Weald and had no place of honour, for 
Camorak and his men had no fear of Fate. 
And when the meat was eaten and the bones 
cast aside, the king rose up from his chair, 
and having drunken wine, and being in the 
glory of his youth and with all his knights 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

about him, called to the diviner, saying, 
"Prophesy ." 

And the diviner rose up, stroking his 
grey beard, and spake guardedly — "There 
are certain events," he said, "upon the 
ways of Fate that are veiled even from a 
diviner's eyes, and many more are clear to 
us that were better veiled from all; much I 
know that is better unforetold, and some 
things that I may not foretell on pain of 
centuries of punishment. But this I know 
and foretell — that you will never come to 
Carcassonne." 

Instantly there was a buzz of talk tell- 
ing of Carcassonne — some had heard of 
it in speech or song, some had read of 
it, and some had dreamed of it. And 
the king sent Arleon of the Harp down 
from his right hand to mingle with the 
Weald-folk to hear aught that any told 
of Carcassonne. But the warriors told of 
the places they had won to — many a hard- 
held fortress, many a far-off land, and 
swore that they would come to Carcassonne. 

And in a while came Arleon back to 
the king's right hand, and raised his harp 
and chanted and told of Carcassonne. 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

Far away it was, and far and far away, 
a city of gleaming ramparts rising one 
over other, and marble terraces behind the 
ramparts, and fountains shimmering on the 
terraces. To Carcassonne the elf-kings 
with their fairies had first retreated from 
men, and had built it on an evening late 
in May by blowing their elfin horns. Car- 
cassonne! Carcassonne! 

Travellers had seen it sometimes like a 
clear dream, with the sun glittering on its 
citadel upon a far-off hill-top, and then 
the clouds had come or a sudden mist; 
no one had seen it long or come quite 
close to it; though once there were some 
men that came very near, and the smoke 
from the houses blew into their faces, a 
sudden gust — no more, and these declared 
that some one was burning cedarw^ood there. 
Men had dreamed that there is a witch 
there, walking alone through the cold 
courts and corridors of marmorean palaces, 
fearfully beautiful still for all her four- 
score centuries, singing the second oldest 
song, which was taught her by the sea, 
shedding tears for lonehness from eyes that 
would madden armies, yet will she not call 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

her dragons home — Carcassonne is terribly 
guarded. Sometimes she swims in a marble 
bath through whose deeps a river tumbles, 
or lies all morning on the edge of it to dry 
slowly in the sun, and ^vatches the heaving 
river trouble the deeps of the bath. It 
flows through the caverns of earth for 
further than she knows, and coming to 
light in the witch's bath goes down through 
the earth again to its own peculiar sea. 

In autumn sometimes it comes down 
black with snow that spring has molten in 
unimagined mountains, or withered blooms 
of mountain shrubs go beautifully by. 

When there is blood in the bath she 
knows there is war in the mountains; and 
yet she knows not where those mountains 
are. 

When she sings the fountains dance up 
from the dark earth, when she combs her 
hair they say there are storms at sea, when 
she is angry the wolves grow brave and all 
come doT^Ti to the byres, when she is sad 
the sea is sad, and both are sad for ever. 
Carcassonne! Carcassonne! 

This city is the fairest of the wonders 
of Morning; the sun shouts when he be- 

151 



A Dreamer's Tales 

holdeth it; for Carcassonne Evening weep- 
eth when Evening passeth away. 

And Arleon told how many goodly perils 
were round about the city, and how the 
way was unknown, and it was a knightly 
venture. Then all the warriors stood up 
and sang of the splendour of the venture. 
And Camorak swore by the gods that had 
builded Arn, and by the honour of his 
warriors that, alive or dead, he would come 
to Carcassonne. 

But the diviner rose and passed out of 
the hall, brushing the crumbs from him 
with his hands and smoothing his robe as 
he went. 

Then Camorak said, "There are many 
things to be planned, and counsels to be 
taken, and provender to be gathered. Upon 
what day shall we start?" And all the 
warriors answering shouted, "Now." And 
Camorak smiled thereat, for he had but 
tried them. Down then from the walls 
they took their weapons, Sikorix, Kelleron, 
Aslof, Wole of the Axe; Huhenoth, Peace- 
breaker; Wolwuf, Father of War; Tarion, 
Lurth of the War-cry and many another. 
Little then dreamed the spiders that sat 

152 



A Dreamer's Tales 

in that ringing hall of the unmolested 
leisure they were soon to enjoy. 

When they were armed they all formed 
up and marched out of the hall, and Arleon 
strode before them singing of Carcassonne. 

But the folk of the Weald arose and 
went back well-fed to their byres. They 
had no need of wars or of rare perils. They 
were ever at war with hunger. A long 
drought or hard winter were to them 
pitched battles; if the wolves entered a 
sheep-fold it was like the loss of a fortress, 
a thunder-storm on the harvest was like 
an ambuscade. Well-fed, they went back 
slowly to their byres, being at truce with 
hunger: and the night filled with stars. 

And black against the starry sky ap- 
peared the round helms of the warriors as 
they passed the tops of the ridges, but in 
the valleys they sparkled now and then as 
the starlight flashed on steel. 

They followed behind Arleon going south, 
whence rumours had always come of Car- 
cassonne: so they marched in the starlight, 
and he before them singing. 

When they had marched so far that they 
heard no sound from Arn, and even in- 

153 



A Dreamer* s Tales 

audible were her swinging bells, when 
candles burning late far up in towers no 
longer sent them their disconsolate wel- 
come; in the midst of the pleasant night 
that lulls the rural spaces, weariness came 
upon Arleon and his inspiration failed. It 
failed slowly. Gradually he grew less sure 
of the way to Carcassonne. Awhile he 
stopped to think, and remembered the way 
again; but his clear certainty was gone, 
and in its place were efforts in his mind to 
recall old prophecies and shepherd's songs 
that told of the marvellous city. Then as 
he said over carefully to himseK a song 
that a wanderer had learnt from a goat- 
herd's boy far up the lower slope of ultimate 
southern mountains, fatigue came down 
upon his toiling mind like snow on the 
winding ways of a city noisy by night, 
stilling all. 

He stood, and the warriors closed up to 
him. For long they had passed by great 
oaks standing solitary here and there, like 
giants taking huge breaths of the night air 
before doing some furious deed; now they 
had come to the verge of a black forest; 
the tree-trunks stood like those great col- 

154 



A Dreamefs Tales 

umns in an Egyptian hall whence God in 
an older mood received the praise of men; 
the top of it sloped the way of an ancient 
wind. Here they all halted and lighted a 
fire of branches, striking sparks from flint 
into a heap of bracken. They eased them 
of their armour, and sat round the fire, 
and Camorak stood up there and addressed 
them, and Camorak said: "We go to war 
with Fate, who has doomed that I shall not 
come to Carcassonne. And if we turn 
aside but one of the dooms of Fate, then the 
whole future of the world is ours, and the 
future that Fate has ordered is like the 
dry course of an averted river. But if 
such men as we, such resolute conquer- 
ors, cannot prevent one doom that Fate 
has planned, then is the race of man en- 
slaved for ever to do its petty and allotted 
task." 

Then they all drew their swords, and 
waved them high in the firelight, and 
declared war on Fate. 

Nothing in the sombre forest stirred or 
made any sound. 

Tired men do not dream of war. When 
morning came over the gleaming fields a 

155 



A Dreamer's Tales 

company that had set out from Arn dis- 
covered the camping-place of the warriors, 
and brought paviUons and provender. And 
the warriors feasted, and the birds in the 
forest sang, and the inspiration of Arleon 
awoke. 

Then they arose, and following Arleon, 
entered the forest, and marched away to 
the South. And many a woman of Arn 
sent her thoughts with them as they played 
alone some old monotonous tune, but their 
own thoughts were far before them, skim- 
ming over the bath through whose deeps 
the river tumbles in marble Carcassonne. 

When butterflies were dancing on the 
air, and the sun neared the zenith, pavilions 
were pitched, and all the warriors rested; 
and then they feasted again, and then 
played knightly games, and late in the after- 
noon marched on once more, singing of 
Carcassonne. 

And night came down with its mystery 
on the forest, and gave their demoniac 
look again to the trees, and rolled up out 
of misty hollows a huge and yellow moon. 

And the men of Arn lit fires, and sudden 
shadows arose and leaped fantastically 

156 



A Dreamer's Tales 

away. And the night-wind blew, arising 
hke a ghost, and passed between the tree- 
trunks, and sHpped down shimmering 
glades, and waked the prowhng beasts still 
dreaming of day, and drifted nocturnal birds 
afield to menace timorous things, and beat 
the roses against cottagers' panes, and 
whispered news of the befriending night, 
and wafted to the ears of wandering men 
the sound of a maiden's song, and gave a 
glamour to the lutanist's tune played in 
his loneliness on distant hills; and the deep 
eyes of moths glowed like a galleon's lamps, 
and they spread their wings and sailed their 
familiar sea. Upon this night-wind also 
the dreams of Camorak's men floated to 
Carcassonne. 

All the next morning they marched, and 
all the evening, and knew they were near- 
ing now the deeps of the forest. And the 
citizens of Arn kept close together and 
close behind the warriors. For the deeps of 
the forest were all unknown to travellers, 
but not unknown to those tales of fear 
that men tell at evening to their friends, in 
the comfort and the safety of their hearths. 
Then night appeared, and an enormous 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

moon. And the men of Camorak slept. 
Sometimes they woke, and went to sleep 
again; and those that stayed awake for 
long and listened heard heavy two-footed 
creatures pad through the night on paws. 

As soon as it was light the unarmed men 
of Am began to slip away, and went back 
by bands through the forest. When dark- 
ness came they did not stop to sleep, but 
continued their flight straight on until they 
came to Arn, and added there by the tales 
they told to the terror of the forest. 

But the warriors feasted, and afterwards 
Arleon rose, and played his harp, and led 
them on again; and a few faithful servants 
stayed with them still. And they marched 
all day through a gloom that was as old as 
night, but Arleon's inspiration burned in 
his mind Uke a star. And he led them till 
the birds began to drop into the tree-tops, 
and it was evening and they all encamped. 
They had only one pavihon left to them 
now, and near it they lit a fire, and Cam- 
orak posted a sentry with drawn sword 
just beyond the glow of the fireUght. Some 
of the warriors slept in the pavilion and 
others round about it. 

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A Dreamefs Tales 

When dawn came something terrible had 
killed and eaten the sentry. But the 
splendour of the rumours of Carcassonne 
and Fate's decree that they should never 
come there, and the inspiration of Arleon 
and his harp, all urged the warriors on; and 
they marched deeper and deeper all day 
into the forest. 

Once they saw a dragon that had caught 
a bear and was playing with it, letting it run 
a little way and overtaking it with a paw. 

They came at last to a clear space in 
the forest just before nightfall. An odour 
of flowers arose from it like a mist, and 
every drop of dew interpreted heaven unto 
itself. 

It was the hour when twilight kisses 
Earth. 

It was the hour when a meaning comes 
into senseless things, and trees out-majesty 
the pomp of monarchs, and the timid 
creatures steal abroad to feed, and as yet 
the beasts of prey harmlessly dream, and 
Earth utters a sigh, and it is night. 

In the midst of the wide clearing Cam- 
orak's warriors camped, and rejoiced to see 
the stars again appearing one by one. 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

That night they ate the last of their 
provisions, and slept unmolested by the 
prowling things that haunt the gloom of 
the forest. 

On the next day some of the warriors 
hunted stags, and others lay in rushes by 
a neighboring lake and shot arrows at 
water-fowl. One stag was killed, and some 
geese, and several teal. 

Here the adventurers stayed, breathing 
the pure wild air that cities know not; by 
day they hunted, and lit fires by night, and 
sang and feasted, and forgot Carcassonne. 
The terrible denizens of the gloom never 
molested them, venison was plentiful, and 
all manner of water-fowl: they loved the 
chase by day, and by night their favourite 
songs. Thus day after day went by, thus 
week after week. Time flung over this en- 
campment a handful of noons, the gold and 
silver moons that waste the year away; 
Autunm and Winter passed, and Spring 
appeared; and still the warriors hunted 
and feasted there. 

One night of the springtide they were 
feasting about a fire and telling tales 
of the chase, and the soft moths came 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

out of the dark and flaunted their col- 
ours in the firehght, and went out grey 
into the dark again; and the night wind 
was cool upon the warriors' necks, and 
the camp-fire was warm in their faces, 
and a silence had settled among them 
after some song, and Arleon all at once rose 
suddenly up, remembering Carcassonne. 
And his hand swept over the strings of 
his harp, awaking the deeper chords, like 
the sound of a nimble people dancing their 
steps on bronze, and the music rolled away 
into the night's own silence, and the voice 
of Arleon rose: 

"When there is blood in the bath she 
knows there is war in the mountains, and 
longs for the battle-shout of kingly men." 

And suddenly all shouted, "Carcassonne ! " 
And at that word their idleness was gone 
as a dream is gone from a dreamer waked 
with a shout. And soon the great march 
began that faltered no more nor wavered. 
Unchecked by battles, undaunted in lone- 
some spaces, ever unwearied by the vultur- 
ous years, the warriors of Camorak held 
on; and Arleon's inspiration led them still. 
They cleft with the music of Arleon's harp 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

the gloom of ancient silences; they went 
singing into battles with terrible wild men, 
and came out singing, but with fewer 
voices; they came to villages in valleys full 
of the music of bells, or saw the lights at 
dusk of cottages sheltering others. 

They became a proverb for wandering, 
and a legend arose of strange, disconsolate 
men. Folks spoke of them at nightfall 
when the fire was warm and rain slipped 
down the eaves; and when the wind was 
high small children feared the Men Who 
Would Not Rest were going clattering past. 
Strange tales were told of men in old grey 
armour moving at twilight along the tops 
of the hills and never asking shelter; and 
mothers told their boys who grew impatient 
of home that the grey wanderers were once 
so impatient and were now hopeless of 
rest, and were driven along with the rain 
whenever the wind was angry. 

But the wanderers were cheered in their 
wandering by the hope of coming to Car- 
cassonne, and later on by anger against 
Fate, and at last they marched on still be- 
cause it seemed better to march on than 
to think. 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

For many years they had wandered and 
had fought with many tribes; often they 
gathered legends in villages and listened to 
idle singers singing songs; and all the 
rumours of Carcassonne still came from the 
South. 

And then one day they came to a hilly 
land with a legend in it that only three 
valleys away a man might see, on clear 
days, Carcassonne. Tired though they were 
and few, and worn with the years which 
had all brought them wars, they pushed on 
instantly, led still by Arleon's inspiration 
which dwindled in his age, though he made 
music with his old harp still. 

All day they climbed down into the first 
valley and for two days ascended, and came 
to the Town That May Not Be Taken In 
War below the top of the mountain, and 
its gates were shut against them, and there 
was no way round. To left and right steep 
precipices stood for as far as eye could see 
or legend tell of, and the pass lay through 
the city. Therefore Camorak drew up his 
remaining warriors in line of battle to wage 
their last war, and they stepped forward 
over the crisp bones of old, unburied armies. 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

No sentinel defied them in the gate, no 
arrow flew from any tower of war. One 
citizen climbed alone to the mountain's 
top, and the rest hid themselves in sheltered 
places. 

Now, in the top of the mountain was 
a deep, bowl-like cavern in the rock, in 
which fires bubbled softly. But if any cast 
a boulder into the fires, as it was the custom 
for one of those citizens to do when enemies 
approached them, the mountain hurled up 
intermittent rocks for three days, and the 
rocks fell flaming all over the town and all 
round about it. And just as Camorak's 
men began to batter the gate they heard a 
crash on the mountain, and a great rock fell 
beyond them and rolled into the valley. 
The next two fell in front of them on 
the iron roofs of the town. Just as they 
entered the town a rock found them crowded 
in a narrow street, and shattered two of 
them. The mountain smoked and panted; 
with every pant a rock plunged into the 
streets or bounced along the heavy iron 
roof, and the smoke went slowly up, and 
up, and up. 

When they had come through the long 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

town's empty streets to the locked gate 
at the end, only fifteen were left. When 
they had broken down the gate there were 
only ten ahve. Three more were killed 
as they went up the slope, and two as they 
passed near the terrible cavern. Fate let 
the rest go some way down the mountain 
upon the other side, and then took three 
of them. Camorak and Arleon alone were 
left alive. And night came down on the 
valley to which they had come, and was 
lit by flashes from the fatal mountain; and 
the two mourned for their comrades all 
night long. 

But when the morning came they re- 
membered their war with Fate, and their 
old resolve to come to Carcassonne, and 
the voice of Arleon rose in a quavering song, 
and snatches of music from his old harp, 
and he stood up and marched with his face 
southwards as he had done for years, and 
behind him Camorak went. And when at 
last they cUmbed from the third valley, 
and stood on the hill's summit in the golden 
sunlight of evening, their aged eyes saw 
only miles of forest and the birds going 
to roost. 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

Their beards were white, and they had 
travelled very far and hard; it was the time 
with them when a man rests from labours 
and dreams in hght sleep of the years that 
were and not of the years to come. 

Long they looked southwards; and the 
sun set over remoter forests, and glow- 
worms lit their lamps, and the inspiration 
of Arleon rose and flew away for ever, to 
gladden, perhaps, the dreams of younger 
men. 

And Arleon said: "My King, I know no 
longer the way to Carcassonnne." 

And Camorak smiled, as the aged smile, 
with Uttle cause for mirth, and said: "The 
years are going by us like huge birds, whom 
Doom and Destiny and the schemes of God 
have frightened up out of some old grey 
marsh. And it may well be that against 
these no warrior may avail, and that Fate 
has conquerored us, and that our quest 
has failed." 

And after this they were silent. 

Then they drew their swords, and side 
by side went down into the forest, still 
seeking for Carcassonne. 

I think they got not far; for there were 

166 



A Dreamer's Tales 

deadly marshes in that forest, and gloom 
that outlasted the nights, and fearful beasts 
accustomed to its ways. Neither is there 
any legend, either in verse or among the 
songs of the people of the fields, of any 
having come to Carcassonne. 



167 



In Zaccarath 




oine,"said the King in sacred 
Zaccarath, " and let our proph- 
ets prophesy before us." 
A far-seen jewel of light was 
jP1|the holy palace, a wonder to 
the nomads on the plains. 

There was the King with all his under- 
lords, and the lesser kings that did him 
vassalage, and there were all his queens 
with all their jewels upon them. 

Who shall tell of the splendour in which 
they sat; of the thousand hghts and the 
answering emeralds; of the dangerous 
beauty of that hoard of queens, or the 
flash of their laden necks? 

There was a necklace there of rose-pink 
pearls beyond the art of dreamer to imagine. 
Who shall tell of the amethyst chandeliers, 

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A Dreamefs Tales 

where torches, soaked in rare Bhyrinian oils, 
burned and gave off a scent of blethany?^ 

Enough to say that when the dawn came 
up it appeared by contrast paUid and 
unlovely and stripped all bare of its glory, 
so that it hid itself with rolling clouds. 

"Come," said the King, "let our pro- 
phets prophesy." 

Then the heralds stepped through the 
ranks of the King's silk-clad warriors who 
lay oiled and scented upon velvet cloaks, 
with a pleasant breeze among them caused 
by the fans of slaves; even their casting- 
spears were set with jewels; through their 
ranks the heralds went with mincing steps, 
and came to the prophets, clad in brown and 
black, and one of them they brought and 
set him before the King. And the King 
looked at him and said, "Prophesy unto us." 

And the prophet lifted his head, so that 
his beard came clear from his brown cloak, 

iThe herb marvellous, which, growing near the summit 
of Mount Zaumnos, scents all the Zaumnian range, and is 
smelt far out on the Kepuscran plains, and even, when the 
wind is from the mountains, in the streets of the city of 
Ognoth. At night it closes its petals and is heard to breathe, 
and its breath is a swift poison. This it does even by day 
if the snows are disturbed about it. No plant of this has 
ever been captured alive by a hunter. 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

and the fans of the slaves that fanned 
the warriors wafted the tip of it a 
httle awry. And he spake to the King, 
and spake thus: 

*'Woe unto thee, King, and woe unto 
Zaccarath. Woe unto thee, and woe unto 
thy women, for your fall shall be sore and 
soon. Aheady in Heaven the gods shun 
thy god: they know his doom and what is 
written of him : he sees oblivion before him 
like a mist. Thou hast aroused the hate 
of the mountaineers. They hate thee all 
along the crags of Droom. The evilness of 
thy days shall bring down the Zeedians on 
thee as the suns of springtide bring the 
avalanche down. They shall do unto Zac- 
carath as the avalanche doth unto the ham- 
lets of the valley." When the queens 
chattered or tittered among themselves, he 
merely raised his voice and still spake on: 
"Woe to these walls and the carven things 
upon them. The hunter shall know the 
camping-places of the nomads by the marks 
of the camp-fires on the plain, but he shall 
not know the place of Zaccarath." 

A fevv^ of the recumbent warriors turned 
their heads to glance at the prophet when 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

he ceased. Far overhead the echoes of his 
voice hummed on awhile among the cedam 
rafters. 

"Is he not splendid?" said the King. 
And many of that assembly beat with 
their palms upon the poUshed floor in token 
of applause. Then the prophet was con- 
ducted back to his place at the far end 
of that mighty hall, and for a while musici- 
ans played on marvellous curved horns, 
while drums throbbed behind them hidden 
in a recess. The musicians were sitting 
cross-legged on the floor, all blowing their 
huge horns in the briUiant torchlight, but 
as the drums throbbed louder in the dark 
they arose and moved slowly nearer to the 
King. Louder and louder drununed the 
drums in the dark, and nearer and nearer 
moved the men with the horns, so that their 
music should not be drowned by the drums 
before it reached the King. 

A marvellous scene it was when the 
tempestuous horns were halted before the 
King, and the drums in the dark were 
hke the thunder of God; and the queens 
were nodding their heads in time to the 
music, with their diadems flashing like 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

heavens of falling stars; and the warriors 
hfted their heads and shook, as they Ufted 
them, the plumes of those golden birds 
which hunters wait for by the Liddian 
lakes, in a whole lifetime killing scarcely 
six, to make the crests that the warriors 
wore when they feasted in Zaccarath. Then 
the King shouted and the warriors sang — 
almost they remembered then old battle- 
chants. And, as they sang, the sound of 
the drums dwindled, and the musicians 
walked away backwards, and the drum- 
ming became fainter and fainter as they 
walked, and altogether ceased, and they 
blew no more on their fantastic horns. 
Then the assemblage beat on the floor with 
their palms. And afterwards the queens 
besought the King to send for another 
prophet. And the heralds brought a singer, 
and placed him before the King; and the 
singer was a young man with a harp. And 
he swept the strings of it, and when there 
was silence he sang of the iniquity of the 
King. And he foretold the onrush of the 
Zeedians, and the fall and the forgetting of 
Zaccarath, and the coming again of the 
desert to its own, and the playing about of 

172 



A Dreamer's Tales 

little lion cubs where the courts of the 
palace had stood. 

"Of what is he singing?" said a queen to 
a queen. 

"He is singing of everlasting Zac- 
carath." 

As the singer ceased the assemblage beat 
listlessly on the floor, and the King nodded 
to him, and he departed. 

When all the prophets had prophesied 
to them and all the singers sung, that royal 
company arose and wxnt to other chambers, 
leaving the hall of festival to the pale and 
lonely dawn. And alone were left the lion- 
headed gods that were carven out of the 
walls; silent they stood, and their rocky 
arms were folded. And shadows over their 
faces moved Uke curious thoughts as the 
torches flickered and the dull dawn crossed 
the fields. And the colours began to change 
in the chandeliers. 

When the last lutanist fell asleep the 
birds began to sing. 

Never was greater splendour or a more 
famous hall. When the queens went away 
through the curtained door with all their 
diadems, it was as though the stars should 

173 



A Dreamer's Tales 

arise in their stations and troop together 
to the West at sunrise. 

And only the other day Ifound a stone 
that had undoubtedly been a part of Zac- 
carath, it was three inches long and an inch 
broad; I saw the edge of it uncovered by 
the sand. I believe that only three other 
pieces have been found like it. 



174 



The Field 




hen one has seen Spring's 
blossom fall in London, and 
Summer appear and ripen and 
decay, as it does early in cities, 
and one is in London still, 
then, at some moment or another,the country 
places hft their flowery heads and call to 
one with an urgent, masterful clearness, 
upland behind upland in the twihght hke 
to some heavenly choir arising rank on 
rank to call a drunkard from his gambling- 
hell. No volume of traffic can drown the 
sound of it, no lure of London can weaken 
its appeal. Having heard it one's fancy is 
gone, and evermore departed, to some 
coloured pebble a-gleam in a rural brook, 
and all that London can offer is swept from 
one's mind like some suddenly smitten 
metropolitan Goliath. 

The call is from afar both in leagues and 

175 



A Dreamer's Tales 

years, for the hills that call one are the hills 
that were, and their voices are the voices 
of long ago, when the elf-kings still had 
horns. 

I see them now, those hills of my infancy 
(for it is they that call), with their faces 
upturned to the purple twilight, and the 
faint diaphanous figures of the fairies peer- 
ing out from under the bracken to see if 
evening is come. I do not see upon their 
regal summits those desirable mansions, 
and highly desirable residences, which have 
lately been built for gentlemen who would 
exchange customers for tenants. 

When the hills called I used to go to them 
by road, riding a bicycle. If you go by 
train you miss the gradual approach, you 
do not cast off London like an old forgiven 
sin, nor pass by little villages on the way 
that must have some rumour of the hills; 
nor, wondering if they are still the same, 
come at last upon the edge of their far- 
spread robes, and so on to their feet, and 
see far off their holy, welcoming faces. 
In the train you see them suddenly round a 
curve, and there they all are sitting in the 
sun. 

176 



A Dreamer's Tales 

I imagine that as one penetrated out 
from some enormous forest of the tropics, 
the wild beasts would become fewer, the 
gloom would lighten, and the horror of 
the place would slowly lift. Yet as one 
emerges nearer to the edge of London, and 
nearer to the beautiful influence of the 
hills, the houses become uglier, the streets 
viler, the gloom deepens, the errors of civil- 
isation stand bare to the scorn of the fields. 

Where ugliness reaches the height of its 
luxuriance, in the dense misery of the place, 
where one imagines the builder saying, 
"Here I culminate. Let us give thanks to 
Satan," there is a bridge of yellow brick, 
and through it, as through some gate of 
filigree silver opening on fairyland, one 
passes into the country. 

To left and right, as far as one can see, 
stretches that monstrous city; before one 
are the fields like an old, old song. 

There is a field there that is full of king- 
cups. A stream runs through it, and along 
the stream is a little wood of oziers. There 
I used often to rest at the stream's edge 
before my long journey to the hills. 

There I used to forget London, street by 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

street. Sometimes I picked a bunch of 
king-cups to show them to the hills. 

I often came there. At first I noticed 
nothing about the field except its beauty 
and its peacefulness. 

But the second time that I came I thought 
there was something ominous about the 
field. 

Down there among the king-cups by 
the little shallow stream I felt that some- 
thing terrible might happen in just such a 
place. 

I did not stay long there, because I 
thought that too much time spent in Lon- 
don had brought on these morbid fancies 
and I went on to the hills as fast as I could. 

I stayed for some days in the country 
air, and when I came back I went to the 
field again to enjoy that peaceful spot be- 
fore entering London. But there was still 
something ominous among the oziers. 

A year elapsed before I went there again. 
I emerged from the shadow of London 
into the gleaming sun, the bright green 
grass and the king-cups were flaming in 
the light, and the little stream was singing 
a happy song. But the moment I stepped 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

into the field my old uneasiness returned, 
and worse than before. It was as though 
the shadow was brooding there of some 
dreadful future thing, and a year had 
brought it nearer. 

I reasoned that the exertion of bicycling 
might be bad for one, and that the moment 
one rested this uneasiness might result. 

A little later I came back past the field 
by night, and the song of the stream in 
the hush attracted me down to it. And 
there the fancy came to me that it would 
be a terribly cold place to be in in the star- 
light, if for some reason one was hurt and 
could not get away. 

I knew a man who was minutely ac- 
quainted with the past history of that lo- 
cality, and him I asked if anything historical 
had ever happened in that field. When he 
pressed me for my reason in asking him 
this, I said that the field had seemed to 
me such a good place to hold a pageant in. 
But he said that nothing of any interest had 
ever occurred there, nothing at all. 

So it was from the future that the field's 
trouble came. 

For three years off and on I made visits 

179 



A Dreamer's Tales 

to the field, and every time more clearly it 
boded evil things, and my uneasiness grew 
more acute every time that I was lured to 
go and rest among the cool green grass 
under the beautiful oziers. Once to dis- 
tract my thoughts I tried to gauge how 
fast the stream was trickling, but I found 
myself wondering if it flowed faster than 
blood. 

I felt that it would be a terrible place to 
go mad in, one would hear voices. 

At last I went to a poet whom I knew, 
and woke him from huge dreams, and put 
before him the whole case of the field. He 
had not been out of London all that year, 
and he promised to come with me and 
look at the field, and tell me what was 
going to happen there. It was late in July 
when we went. The pavement, the air, 
the houses and the dirt had been all baked 
dry by the summer, the weary traffic drag- 
ged on, and on, and on, and Sleep spread- 
ing her wings soared up and floated from 
London and went to walk beautifully in 
rural places. 

When the poet saw the field he was 
delighted, the flowers were out in masses 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

all along the stream, he went down to the 
little wood rejoicing. By the side of the 
stream he stood and seemed very sad. 
Once or twice he looked up and down it 
mournfully, then he bent and looked at the 
king-cups, first one and then another, very 
closely, and shaking his head. 

For a long while he stood in silence, and 
all my old uneasiness returned, and my 
bodings for the future. 

And then I said "What manner of field 
is it?" 

And he shook his head sorrowfully. 

"It is a battlefield," he said. 



181 




The Day of the Poll 



n the town by the sea it was 
(the day of the poll, and the 
poet regarded it sadly when 
I he woke and saw the light of it 
_^ coming in at his window be- 
tween two small curtains of gauze. And 
the day of the poll was beautifully bright; 
stray bird-songs came to the poet at the 
window; the air was crisp and wintry, but 
it was the blaze of sunhght that had de- 
ceived the birds. He heard the sound of 
the sea that the moon led up the shore, 
dragging the months away over the pebbles 
and shingles and piUng them up with the 
years where the worn-out centuries lay; he 
saw the majestic downs stand facing mightily 
southwards; he saw the smoke of the town 
float up to their heavenly faces — column 
after column rose calmly into the morning 
as house by house was waked by peering 

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A Dreamer's Tales 

shafts of the sunUght and ht its fires for the 
day; column by column went up toward the 
serene downs' faces, and failed before they 
came there and hung all white over houses; 
and every one in the town was raving mad. 
It was a strange thing that the poet did, 
for he hired the largest motor in the town 
and covered it with all the flags he could 
find, and set out to save an intelligence. 
And he presently found a man whose face 
was hot, who shouted that the time was not 
far distant when a candidate, whom he 
named, would be returned at the head of 
the poll by a thumping majority. And by 
him the poet stopped and offered him a seat 
in the motor that was covered with flags. 
When the man saw the flags that were on 
the motor, and that it was the largest in the 
town, he got in. He said that his vote 
should be given for that fiscal system that 
had made us what we are, in order that the 
poor man's food should not be taxed to 
make the rich man richer. Or else it was 
that he would give his vote for that system 
of tariff reform which should unite us closer 
to our colonies with ties that should long 
endure, and give employment to all. But 

183 



A Dreamer's Tales 

it was not to the polling-booth that that 
motor went, it passed it and left the town 
and came by a small white winding road 
to the very top of the downs. There the 
poet dismissed the car and led that wonder- 
ing voter on to the grass and seated himself 
on a rug. And for long the voter talked 
of those imperial traditions that our fore- 
fathers had made for us and which he should 
uphold with his vote, or else it was of a 
people oppressed by a feudal system that 
was out of date and effete, and that should 
be ended or mended. But the poet pointed 
out to him small, distant, wandering ships 
on the sunlit strip of sea, and the birds far 
down below them, and the houses below the 
birds, with the little columns of smoke that 
could not find the downs. 

And at first the voter cried for his polling- 
booth like a child; but after a while he grew 
calmer, save when faint bursts of cheering 
came twittering up to the downs, when the 
voter would cry out bitterly against the 
misgovernment of the Radical party, or else 
it was — I forget what the poet told me — he 
extolled its splendid record. 

"See," said the poet, "these ancient 

184 



A Dreamer's Tales 

beautiful things, the downs and the old- 
time houses and the morning, and the grey 
sea in the sunlight going mumbHng round 
the world. And this is the place they have 
chosen to go mad in!" 

And standing there with all broad Eng- 
land behind him, rolling northward, down 
after down, and before him the gUttering sea 
too far for the sound of the roar of it, there 
seemed to the voter to grow less important 
the questions that troubled the town. Yet 
he was still angry. 

"Why did you bring me here?" he said 
again. 

"Because I grew lonely," said the poet, 
"when all the town went mad." 

Then he pointed out to the voter some 
old bent thorns, and showed him the way 
that a wind had blown for a million years, 
coming up at dawn from the sea; and he 
told him of the storms that visit the ships, 
and their names and whence they come, 
and the currents they drive afield, and the 
way that the swallows go. And he spoke 
of the down where they sat, when the 
summer came, and the flowers that were 
not yet, and the different butterflies, and 

185 



A Dreamer's Tales 

about the bats and the swifts, and the 
thoughts in the heart of man. He spoke 
of the aged windmill that stood on the 
down, and of how to children it seemed 
a strange old man who was only dead 
by day. And as he spoke, and as the 
sea-wind blew on that high and lonely 
place, there began to slip away from the 
voter's mind meaningless phrases that had 
crowded it long — thumping majority — 
victory in the fight — terminological in- 
exactitudes — and the smell of paraffin lamps 
dangling in heated schoolrooms, and quota- 
tions taken from ancient speeches because 
the words were long. They fell away, 
though slowly, and slowly the voter saw a 
wider world and the wonder of the sea. 
And the afternoon wore on, and the winter 
evening came, and the night fell, and all 
black grew the sea; and about the time 
that the stars come blinking out to look 
upon our Uttleness, the poUing-booth closed 
in the town. 

When they got back the turmoil was 
on the wane in the streets; night hid the 
glare of the posters; and the tide, finding 
the noise abated and being at the flow, 

186 



A Dreamer's Tales 

told an old tale that he had learned in 
his youth about the deeps of the sea, the 
same which he had told to coastwise ships 
that brought it to Babylon by the way of 
Euphrates before the doom of Troy. 

I blame my friend the poet, however 
lonely he was, for preventing this man 
from registering his vote (the duty of every 
citizen); but perhaps it matters less, as it 
was a foregone conclusion, because the 
losing candidate, either through poverty or 
sheer madness, had neglected to subscribe 
to a single football club. 



187 



The Unhappy Body 



5[|^^^^^hy do you not dance with us 
^'^^ 1^2 and rejoice with us?" they 
said to a certain body. And 
then that body made the con- 
1^5?'f^i^»^1^J|fession of its trouble. It said : 
"I am united with a fierce and violent soul, 
that is altogether tyrannous and will not 
let me rest, and he drags me away from 
the dances of my kin to make me toil at 
his detestable work; and he will not let 
me do the little things, that would give 
pleasure to the folk I love, but only cares 
to please posterity when he has done with 
me and left me to the worms; and all the 
while he makes absurd demands of affec- 
tion from those that are near to me, and is 
too proud even to notice any less than he 
demands, so that those that should be kind 
to me all hate me." And the unhappy 
body burst into tears. 

And they said: "No sensible body cares 

188 



A Dreamer's Tales 

for its soul. A soul is a little thing, and 
should not rule a body. You should drink 
and smoke more till he ceases to trouble 
you." But the body only wept, and said, 
"Mine is a fearful soul. I have driven him 
away for a little while with drink. But he 
will soon come back. Oh, he will soon 
come back!" 

And the body went to bed hoping to rest, 
for it was drowsy with drink. But just 
as sleep was near it, it looked up, and there 
was its soul sitting on the windowsill, a 
misty blaze of Ught, and looking into the 
street. 

"Come," said that tjo-annous soul, "and 
look into the street." 

I have need of sleep," said the body. 
But the street is a beautiful thing," 
the soul said vehemently; "a hundred of 
the people are dreaming there." 

"I am ill through want of rest," the body 
said. 

"That does not matter," the soul said 
to it. "There are millions like you in the 
earth, and millions more to go there. The 
people's dreams are wandering afield; they 
pass the seas and the mountains of faery, 

189 



i6 



A Dreamer's Tales 

threading the intricate passes led by their 
souls; they come to golden temples a-ring 
with a thousand bells; they pass up steep 
streets lit by paper lanterns, where the 
doors are green and small; they know their 
way to witches' chambers and castles of 
enchantment; they know the spell that 
brings them to the causeway along the 
ivory mountains — on one side looking down- 
ward they behold the fields of their youth 
and on the other lie the radiant plains of 
the future. Arise and write down what 
the people dream." 

"What reward is there for me," said the 
body, "if I write down what you bid me?" 

"There is no reward," said the soul. 

"Then I shall sleep," said the body. 

And the soul began to hum an idle song 
sung by a young man in a fabulous land 
as he passed a golden city (where fiery 
sentinels stood), and knew that his wife 
was within it, though as yet but a little 
child, and knew by prophecy that furious 
wars, not yet arisen in far and unknown 
mountains, should roll above him with their 
dust and thirst before he ever came to that 
city again — the young man sang it as he 

190 



A Dreamer's Tales 

passed the gate, and was now dead with 
his wife a thousand years. 

"I cannot sleep for that abominable 
song," the body cried to the soul. 

"Then do as you are commanded," the 
soul repHed. And wearily the body took a 
pen again. Then the soul spoke merrily as 
he looked through the window. "There is 
a mountain lifting sheer above London, 
part crystal and part mist. Thither the 
dreamers go when the sound of the traffic 
has fallen. At first they scarcely dream 
because of the roar of it, but before mid- 
night it stops, and turns, and ebbs with all 
its wrecks. Then the dreamers arise and 
scale the shimmering mountain, and at its 
summit find the galleons of dream. Thence 
some sail East, some West, some into the 
Past and some into the Future, for the 
galleons sail over the years as well as over 
the spaces, but mostly they head for the 
Past and the olden harbours, for thither 
the sighs of men are mostly turned, and the 
dream-ships go before them, as the mer- 
chantmen before the continual trade-winds 
go down the African coast. I see the gal- 
leons even now raise anchor after anchor; 

191 



A Dreamer's Tales 

the stars flash by them; they sUp out of 
the night; their prows go gleaming into 
the twilight of memory, and night soon Ues 
far off, a black cloud hanging low, and 
faintly spangled with stars, like the harbour 
and shore of some low-lying land seen 
afar with its harbour lights." 

Dream after dream that soul related as 
he sat there by the window. He told of 
tropical forests seen by unhappy men who 
could not escape from London, and never 
would — forests made suddenly wondrous by 
the song of some passing bird flying to 
unknown eeries and singing an unknown 
song. He saw the old men lightly dancing 
to the tune of elfin pipes — beautiful dances 
with fantastic maidens — all night on moon- 
lit imaginary mountains; he heard far off 
the music of glittering Springs; he saw the 
fairness of blossoms of apple and may 
thirty years fallen; he heard old voices — 
old tears came glistening back; Romance 
sat cloked and crowned upon southern hills, 
and the soul knew him. 

One by one he told the dreams of all 
that slept in that street. Sometimes he 
stopped to revile the body because it worked 

192 



A Dreamer's Tales 

badly and slowly. Its chill fingers wrote as 
fast as they could, but the soul cared not 
for that. And so the night wore on till the 
soul heard tinkKng in Oriental skies far 
footfalls of the morning. 

"See now," said the soul, "the dawn 
that the dreamers dread. The sails of Ught 
are paUng on those unwreckable galleons; 
the mariners that steer them sHp back into 
fable and myth; that other sea the traffic 
is. turning now at its ebb, and is about to 
hide its pallid wrecks, and to come swinging 
back, with its tumult, at the flow. Already 
the sunUght flashes in the gulfs behind the 
east of the world; the gods have seen it 
from their palace of twiUght that they 
built above the sunrise; they warm their 
hands at its glow as it streams through 
their gleaming arches, before it reaches the 
world; all the gods are there that have 
ever been, and all the gods that shall be; 
they sit there in the morning, chanting 
and praising Man." 

"I am numb and very cold for want of 
sleep," said the body. 

"You shall have centuries of sleep," 
said the soul, "but you must not sleep 

193 



A Dreamer 's Tales 

now, for I have seen deep meadows with 
purple flowers flaming tall and strange 
above the brilliant grass, and herds of pure 
white unicorns that gambol there for joy, 
and a river running by with a glittering 
galleon on it, all of gold, that goes from an 
unknown inland to an unknown isle of the 
sea to take a song from the King of Over- 
the-Hills to the Queen of Far- Away. 

"I will sing that song to you, and you 
shall write it down." 

"I have toiled for you for years," the 
body said. "Give me now but one night's 
rest, for I am exceeding weary." 

"Oh, go and rest. I am tired of you. 
I am off," said the soul. 

And he arose and went, we know not 
whither. But the body they laid in the 
earth. And the next night at midnight the 
wraiths of the dead came drifting from their 
tombs to felicitate that body. 

"You are free here, you know," they 
said to their new companion. 

"Now I can rest," said the body. 



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